Book Cult: The Son of Neptune
by chocolatebackground
Summary: Leo was transported back directly after the Titan War, with three books: The Lost Hero, Son of Neptune and Mark of Athena. Read on to see the reactions of the gods and demigods as they read what happened in the future. Special thanks to A Stripped Tigger, who created Book Cult, and whoever who made the image!
1. Chapter 1

**Hello, everyone. **

**This is my second fanfiction. Special thanks to A Stripped Tigger, the creator of Book Cult!**

**Just to let you know, the words in bold belong to Rick Riordan. **

_**Introduction: Leo had been taken by Nemesis back to the past, right after the Titan War (when the gods were rewarding the demigods for their bravery, and offering Percy immortality), holding three books: The Lost Hero, the Son of Neptune and the Mark of Athena. The gods are to read the books so they could prevent the Giant War. **_

_**Now, The Lost Hero (The Original Book Cult, written by A Stripped Tigger) has been completed. The Son of Neptune will be read. **_

**Chapter One**

"Finished,"

Leo couldn't stifle the whoop of joy. Everyone stared at him.

"It's over!" Leo giggled like a crazy person. "No more invading into Leo's Head now!"

"Nuh uh," Apollo grinned, holding up the two other books.

Leo's heart fell.

The silence was broken by Zeus.

"It's getting late. We will continue reading tomorrow. Be present at seven thirty in the morning. Breakfast will be provided. Go now,"

With a few grumbles, the demigods paraded out of Mount Olympus.

**Half and hour later...**

The Cabin Nine campers offered Leo Beckendorf's... technically his bed. Leo accepted it gratefully. Even though it was missing quite a few gadgets Leo designed himself, it was still awesome.

Leo tossed and turned in Leo Cave. Will they continue dissecting Leo's thoughts? Or will it be someone else? Gods, Leo was suddenly grateful Piper, Jason, Hazel, Frank... Future Percy and Future Annabeth weren't here. It would be way awkward.

Uneasily, Leo fell asleep.

**The next morning...**

Leo trudged into the elevator.

"Hey, it'll be OK," Katie said reassuringly.

"You're not the one with his thoughts being read aloud by everyone," Leo pointed out.

"Yeah..." Katie muttered.

Once they arrived, the gods began popping into view. With a quick snap of fingers, breakfast arrived.

Everyone was really happy. They were all laughing, though some Ares campers (unfortunately encouraged by their father) snickered behind Leo's back, calling him some pretty unflattering things.

Leo munched on his bagel half-heartedly.

**Once breakfast was over...**

"Who's going to read... The Son of Neptune?" Zeus asked skeptically. Everyone glanced at Poseidon.

The gods were seated on their thrones, the demigods around the room, fiddling with trinkets. Now, they were all entertained.

_Please don't make it be about me, _Percy realized, paling considerably. Suddenly, he understood how Leo felt, with everyone reading his thoughts aloud.

"It could be about another son of Neptune," Annabeth reassured him hopefully.

Percy's gut disagreed.

"Poseidon, would you like the honors?" Zeus asked, handing the book over.

Poseidon shrugged and picked up the book. He glanced at Percy. Both their faces mirrored each other: worry, hesitation, confusion.

"**Percy I..." **

Everybody's mouth dropped open at the same time.

"Percy?" Annabeth squeaked.

"I am dead," Percy groaned.

Poseidon took a few moments to regain composure. He straightened his shoulders. Why can't his son ever get a break? Poseidon made a mental note to pay the Fates a visit and make them give his son a happy ending that isn't Elysium.

Poseidon cleared his throat and continued.

**The snake-haired lades were starting to annoy Percy. **

_I am doomed, _Percy thought.

"The gorgons?" Annabeth gasped.

"I thought they're dead!" Percy groaned.

"Apparently they aren't," Mitchell noted from the Aphrodite group.

**They should have died three days ago when he dropped a crate of bowling balls on them at the Napa Bargain Mart. They should have died two days ago when he ran over them with a police car in Martinez. They definitely should have died this morning when he cut off their heads in Tilden Park.**

"Difficult to kill, aren't they?" Travis asked.

"How am I supposed to know?" Percy demanded.

**No matter how many times Percy killed them and watched them crumble to powder, they just kept re-forming like large evil dust bunnies. **

"Dust bunnies? Seriously?" Annabeth asked.

Percy shrugged.

Leo picked a few scraps of bronze from his tool belt. He twiddled with a few more gears.

**He couldn't even seem to outrun them.**

A few campers winced.

**He reached the top of the hill and caught his breath. How long since he'd last killed them? Maybe two hours. They never seemed to stay dead longer than that.**

"What?" someone gasped.

The demigods' faces mirrored each other. If monsters could reform that quickly... it was a miracle they were alive at all.

**The past few days, he'd hardly slept. He'd eaten whatever he could scrounge—vending machine gummi bears, stale bagels, even a Jack in the Crack burrito, which was a new personal low. His clothes were torn, burned, and splattered with monster slime.**

**He'd only survived this long because the two snake-haired-ladies—gorgons, they called themselves—couldn't seem to kill him either. Their claws didn't cut his skin. Their teeth broke whenever they tried to bite him. But Percy couldn't keep going much longer. Soon he'd collapse from exhaustion, and then—as hard as he was to kill, he was pretty sure the gorgons would find a way.**

**Where to run?**

**He scanned his surroundings. Under different circumstances, he might've enjoyed the view. To his left, golden hills rolled inland, dotted with lakes, woods, and a few herds of cows. To his right, the flatlands of Berkley and Oakland marched west—a vast checkerboard of neighborhoods, with several million people who probably did not want their morning interrupted by two monsters and a filthy demigod.**

**Farther west, San Francisco Bay glittered under a silvery haze. Past that, a wall of fog had swallowed most of San Francisco, leaving just the tops of skyscrapers and the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge. **

The gods faces paled.

_No, _Zeus thought. He glared at Hera, who shrugged, but her face was also white.

**A vague sadness weighed on Percy's chest. Something told him he'd been to San Francisco before. The city had some connection to Annabeth—the only person he could remember from his past. **

"Aw..." Aphrodite cooed. "Despite everything, he still remembers her!"

"Oh, Seaweed Brain..." Annabeth sniffled as she kissed Percy full in the mouth.

"Love you, Owl Head," Percy murmured, earning a glare from Athena.

**His memory of her was frustratingly dim. The wolf had promised he would see her again and regain his memory—if he succeeded in his journey.**

**Should he try to cross the bay?**

"Yes!" Ares yelled. "Die, punk, die!"

The Ares cabin roared in approval.

**It was tempting. He could feel the power of the ocean just over the horizon. Water always revived him. Salt water was the best. He'd discovered that two days ago when he had strangled a sea monster in the Carquinez Strait. **

Poseidon paused to gloat. "That's my boy!"

"So?" Ares shrugged. "Strangling sea monsters... no biggie. I've done things that are much better than that punk could ever do,"

Poseidon glared at Ares before continuing.

**If he could reach the bay, he might be able to make a last stand. Maybe he could even drown the gorgons. But the shore was at least two miles away. He'd have to cross an entire city.**

**He hesitated for another reason. The she-wolf Lupa **

"Lupa..." Annabeth hesitated, remembering her from Jason's adventure.

**had taught him to sharpen his senses—to trust the instincts that had been guiding him south. His homing radar was tingling like crazy now. The end of his journey was close—almost right under his feet. But how could that be? There was nothing on the hilltop.**

"Or is there?" Zeus muttered quietly. The gods' faces turned even more grim. Even Ares had lost his jeer.

**The wind changed. Percy caught the sour scent of reptile. A hundred yards down the slope, something rustled through the woods—snapping branches, crunching leaves, hissing.**

"No," Annabeth whispered. "NO!"

**Gorgons.**

Everybody's breath hitched. Grover let out a little whimper, remembering his lost Uncle Ferdinand.

**For the millionth time, Percy wished their noses weren't so good. They had always said they could smell him because he was a demigod—the half-blood son of some old Roman god. Percy had tried rolling in mud, splashing through creeks, even keeping air-freshener sticks in his pockets so he'd have that new car smell**

"Dude, seriously?" Connor asked. "New car smell?"

Percy glared at the two of them.

**; but apparently demigod stink was hard to mask.**

"Too true," Leo muttered.

Percy grimaced. Apparently Smelly Gabe was the only odor strong enough to mask demigod stink.

**He scrambled to the west side of the summit. It was too steep to descend. The slope plummeted eighty feet, straight to the roof of an apartment complex built into the hillside. Fifty feet below that, a highway emerged from the hill's base and wound its way toward Berkeley.**

**Great. No other way off the hill. He'd managed to get himself cornered.**

Percy flinched. Annabeth started to squeeze his hand, as if making sure if Percy was still there.

_Is this the end? _Percy thought. If so, he'd better start spending every spare second with Annabeth.

**He stared at the stream of cars flowing west toward San Francisco and wished he were in one of them. Then he realized the highway must cut through the hill. There must be a tunnel…right under his feet.**

**His internal radar went nuts. He was in the right place, just too high up. He had to check out that tunnel. He needed a way down to the highway—fast.**

**He slung off his backpack. He'd managed to grab a lot of supplies at the Napa Bargain Mart: a portable GPS, duct tape, lighter, superglue, water bottle, camping roll, a Comfy Panda Pillow Pet (as seen on TV), and a Swiss army knife—pretty much every tool a modern demigod could want. But he had nothing that would serve as a parachute or a sled.**

**That left him two options: jump eighty feet to his death, or stand and fight. Both options sounded pretty bad.**

"Fight, you coward!" Ares yelled, waving his sword.

"Fight, punk. You'd better fight!" Clarisse agreed, brandishing Lamer the Third. (Lamer the first was killed by Percy. Lamer the Second was stuck through a drakon's eye.)

"Jump eighty feet!" Connor said.

"We wanna see you go _splat!_" Travis agreed.

Percy gave both twins a stinky look.

Leo had finished with his trinket. It was a small fan. He attached a few wires, and the fan buzzed to life. Leo sighed with bliss as it sent waves of cool air to his face.

**He cursed and pulled his pen from his pocket.**

**The pen didn't look like much, just a regular cheap ballpoint, but when Percy uncapped it, it grew into a glowing bronze sword. The blade balanced perfectly. The leather grip fit his hand like it had been custom designed for him. Etched along the guard was an Ancient Greek word Percy somehow understood: Anaklusmos—Riptide.**

**He'd woken up with this sword his first night at the Wolf House—two months ago? More? He'd lost track. He'd found himself in the courtyard of a burned-out mansion in the middle of the woods, wearing shorts, an orange T-shirt, and a leather necklace with a bunch of strange clay beads. Riptide had been in his hand, but Percy had had no idea how he'd gotten there, and only the vaguest idea who he was. He'd been barefoot, freezing, and confused. And then the wolves came...**

**Right next to him, a familiar voice jolted him back to the present: "There you are!"**

"Gorgons," Annabeth snarled. Her face was filled with rage.

Leo added a few more wires to his fan. It buzzed louder and the pleasant cool breeze turned quite violent.

**Percy stumbled away from the gorgon, almost falling off the edge of the hill.**

Annabeth's breath hitched.

"No!" Poseidon gasped. Then, he realized that his son _almost _fell off the edge. He sighed in relief.

**It was the smiley one—Beano.**

"Beano?" Athena looked puzzled. "You mean Stheno?"

**Okay, her name wasn't really Beano. As near as Percy could figure, he was dyslexic, because words got twisted around when he tried to read. The first time he'd seen the gorgon, posing as a Bargain Mart greeter with a big green button that read: Welcome! My name is STHENO, he'd thought it said BEANO.**

"Oh," Athena said.

**She was still wearing her green Bargain Mart employee vest over a flower-print dress. If you looked just at her body, you might think she was somebody's dumpy old grandmother—until you looked down and realized she had rooster feet. Or you looked up and saw bronze boar tusks sticking out of the corners of her mouth. Her eyes glowed red, and her hair was a writhing nest of bright green snakes.**

Lacy let out a little squeak.

Aphrodite gasped.

"Anything wrong?" Ares perked up at his girlfriend's horrified gasp.

"A bargain mart vest and a flower-print dress? The combination's awful!" Aphrodite gagged.

**The most horrible thing about her? She was still holding her big silver platter of free samples: Crispy Cheese 'n' Wieners. Her platter was dented from all the times Percy had killed her, but those little samples looked perfectly fine. Stheno just kept toting them across California so she could offer Percy a snack before she killed him. **

That earned a few laughs.

**Percy didn't know why she kept doing that, but if he ever needed a suit of armor, he was going to make it out of Crispy Cheese 'n' Wieners. They were indestructible.**

"Seriously?" Leo asked. "Indestructible Crispy Cheese' n' Wieners?"

"**Try one?" Stheno offered.**

Hermes and Apollo snorted.

**Percy fended her off with his sword. "Where's your sister?"**

"**Oh, put the sword away," Stheno chided. "You know by now that even Celestial bronze can't kill us for long. Have a Cheese 'n' Wiener! They're on sale this week, and I'd hate to kill you on an empty stomach."**

"**Stheno!" The second gorgon appeared on Percy's right so fast, he didn't have time to react. Fortunately she was too busy glaring at her sister to pay him much attention. "I told you to sneak up on him and kill him!"**

**Stheno's smile wavered. "But, Euryale…" She said the name so it rhymed with Muriel. "Can't I give him a sample first?"**

"**No, you imbecile!" Euryale turned toward Percy and bared her fangs.**

**Except for her hair, which was a nest of coral snakes instead of green vipers, she looked exactly like her sister. Her Bargain Mart vest, her flowery dress, even her tusks were decorated with 50% off stickers. Her name badge read: Hello! My name is DIE, DEMIGOD SCUM!**

Aphrodite grew so pale she seemed even whiter than a sheet of paper. Soon, her cheeks were tinted with green.

"Stop reading!" she gasped. "The gorgons... their clothes are _awful_!"

"**You've led us on quite a chase, Percy Jackson," Euryale said. "But now you're trapped, and we'll have our revenge!"**

"**The Cheese 'n' Wieners are only $2.99," Stheno added helpfully. "Grocery department, aisle three." Euryale snarled. "Stheno, the Bargain Mart was a front!**

**You're going native! Now, put down that ridiculous tray and help me kill this demigod. Or have you forgotten that he's the one who vaporized Medusa?"**

"So that's who they are!" Percy said triumphantly.

**Percy stepped back. Six more inches, and he'd be tumbling through thin air. "Look, ladies, we've been over this. I don't even remember killing Medusa. I don't remember anything! Can't we just call a truce and talk about your weekly specials?"**

**Stheno gave her sister a pouty look, which was hard to do with giant bronze tusks. "Can we?"**

"**No!" Euryale's red eyes bored into Percy. "I don't care what you remember, son of the sea god. I can smell Medusa's blood on you. It's faint, yes, several years old, but you were the last one to defeat her. She still has not returned from Tartarus. It's your fault!"**

**Percy didn't really get that. The whole "dying then returning from Tartarus" concept gave him a headache. Of course, so did the idea that a ballpoint pen could turn into a sword, or that monsters could disguise themselves with something called the Mist, or that Percy was the son of a barnacle-encrusted god **

"Barnacle-encrusted god?" Poseidon spluttered. His face turned into the color of an overcooked shrimp.

"Sorry, Pops," Percy said meekly.

"Thank you, Percy. Now, Poseidon's ego has been deflated back into its regular size," Zeus chuckled, purposely using Poseidon's words against him.

After giving Zeus a glare that promised a lot of pain, Poseidon resumed reading.

**from five thousand years ago. But he did believe it. Even though his memory was erased, he knew he was a demigod the same way he knew his name was Percy Jackson. From his very first conversation with Lupa the wolf, he'd accepted that this crazy messed-up world of gods and monsters was his reality. Which pretty much sucked.**

"Pretty much sums it up," Percy agreed.

Leo added even more wires to his miniature fan. Its buzz filled the entire room. Poseidon's voice boomed as he tried to speak over the noise.

"**How about we call it a draw?" he said. "I can't kill you. You can't kill me. If you're Medusa's sisters—like the Medusa who turned people to stone—shouldn't I be petrified by now?"**

"**Heroes!" Euryale said with disgust. "They always bring that up, just like our mother! 'Why can't you turn people to stone? Your sister can turn people to stone.' Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, boy! That was Medusa's curse alone. She was the most hideous one in the family. She got all the luck!"**

**Stheno looked hurt. "Mother said I was the most hideous."**

"**Quiet!" Euryale snapped. "As for you, Percy Jackson, it's true you bear the mark of Achilles. That makes you a little tougher to kill. But don't worry. We'll find a way."**

"**The mark of what?"**

"**Achilles," Stheno said cheerfully. "Oh, he was gorgeous! Dipped in the River Styx as a child, you know, so he was invulnerable except for a tiny spot on his ankle. That's what happened to you, dear. Someone must've dumped you in the Styx and made your skin like iron. But not to worry. Heroes like you always have a weak spot. We just have to find it, and then we can kill you. Won't that be lovely? Have a Cheese 'n' Wiener!"**

"I'm never going to eat another Cheese 'n 'Wiener!" Percy grumbled.

"Stop buzzing that fan!" Zeus ordered.

Leo ruefully turned the fan off. He didn't want his fan to suffer the same fate as the little car that Zeus blasted to ashes. The silence was almost blissful.

**Percy tried to think. He didn't remember any dip in the Styx. Then again, he didn't remember much of anything. His skin didn't feel like iron, but it would explain how he'd held out so long against the gorgons.**

**Maybe if he just fell down the mountain…would he survive? He didn't want to risk it—not without something to slow the fall, or a sled, or…**

**He looked at Stheno's large silver platter of free samples.**

"Seaweed Brain, it's NOT the time for snacks!" Annabeth hissed.

"Sorry!" Percy apologized. "You know, I get really hungry..."

**Hmm...**

"**Reconsidering?" Stheno asked. "Very wise, dear. I added some gorgon's blood to these, so your death will be quick and painless."**

**Percy's throat constricted. "You added your blood to the Cheese 'n' Wieners?"**

Athena gasped.

"What is it, Mother?" Annabeth asked, seeing Athena's distressed expression.

Athena grabbed the book from Poseidon. She flipped through the next few pages, record speed. Immediately, she sighed in relief.

"You'll see," Athena said to Annabeth as she handed the book back to Poseidon.

"**Just a little." Stheno smiled. "A tiny nick on my arm, but you're sweet to be concerned. Blood from our right side can cure anything, you know, but blood from our left side is deadly—"**

"**You dimwit!" Euryale screeched. "You're not supposed to tell him that! He won't eat the wieners if you tell him they're poisoned!"**

Everyone gasped. Percy paled.

Leo picked up a box of matches from his tool belt. He lit one up, and started... or at least tried to set all the matches alight at the same time.

**Stheno looked stunned. "He won't? But I said it would be quick and painless."**

"I'd rather live a good life than to have a painless death," Percy snorted.

Annabeth hugged Percy and cuddled up next to him. Nico scowled.

"**Never mind!" Euryale's fingernails grew into claws. "We'll kill him the hard way—just keep slashing until we find the weak spot. Once we defeat Percy Jackson, we'll be more famous than Medusa! Our patron will reward us greatly!"**

"Gaea..." Athena hissed softly.

**Percy gripped his sword. He'd have to time his move perfectly—a few seconds of confusion, grab the platter with his left hand...**

**Keep them talking, he thought.**

Malcolm gave Percy an approving look. "Now you're thinking like an Athena camper," Malcolm praised Percy.

Percy blinked.

Leo discarded the matches.

"Wait!" Demeter screeched.

The matches tumbled out of Leo's hands. "What?"

"Did you just burn these?" Demeter gestured madly towards the scattered matches.

"Yeah," Leo glanced at his shoes.

"You're burning trees! You're killing them! Throw them into the recycling box!" Demeter insisted.

Leo picked up the matches and tossed them in.

"**Before you slash me to bits," he said, "who's this patron you mentioned?"**

**Euryale sneered. "The goddess Gaea, of course! The one who brought us back from oblivion! You won't live long enough to meet her, but your friends below will soon face her wrath. Even now, her armies are marching south. At the Feast of Fortune, she'll awaken, and the demigods will be cut down like—like—"**

"**Like our low prices at Bargain Mart!" Stheno suggested.**

Hermes, Apollo and a couple other campers laughed.

"That gorgon lady is nuts about Bargain Mart!" Travis chortled.

"No kidding," Connor giggled. Katie shot them dirty looks.

"**Gah!" Euryale stormed toward her sister. Percy took the opening. He grabbed Stheno's platter, scattering poisoned Cheese 'n' Wieners, and slashed Riptide across Euryale's waist, cutting her in half.**

"Yes!" Ares roared, slamming his sword. "Nice job, punk! That's the way to go!"

"Ares!" Demeter hissed. "Be civilized!"

**He raised the platter, and Stheno found herself facing her own greasy reflection.**

"**Medusa!" she screamed.**

**Her sister Euryale had crumbled to dust, but she was already starting to re-form, like a snowman un-melting. "Stheno, you fool!" she gurgled as her half-made face rose from the mound of dust. "That's just your own reflection! Get him!"**

**Percy slammed the metal tray on top of Stheno's head, and she passed out cold.**

"Nice!" the Ares cabin hissed in approval.

Hestia shook her head. Teenage demigods these days... always so violent... no time for family...

Hestia sighed and fanned the flames.

**He put the platter behind his butt, said a silent prayer to whatever Roman god oversaw stupid sledding tricks, and jumped off the side of the hill.**

"NO!" everyone yelled.

"Give it to me!" Annabeth stormed up to Poseidon, snatched the book and returned to her seat.

"Do I live?" Percy asked, chalky face covered in sweat as if he had run an eighty mile marathon without breaks.

"Mm," Leo said. He grabbed a tin of breath mints and popped one in his mouth. He offered Percy one, but Percy was sitting beside Annabeth, who was frantically reading the book.

"**Percy II," **Annabeth began.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello, everyone. **

**The words in bold belong to Rick Riordan. **

**Chapter Two**

**The thing about plummeting downhill at fifty miles an hour on a snack platter—if you realize it's a bad idea when you're halfway down, it's too late.**

"Got that right," Percy muttered. He suddenly felt queasy. Sure, reading about Piper and Jason falling off a cliff... it's suspense, but when someone's reading about you plummeting downhill at fifty miles and hour on a snack platter, the suspense is like, a hundred thousand times worse.

**Percy narrowly missed a tree, glanced off a boulder, and spun a three-sixty as he shot toward the highway. The stupid snack tray did not have power steering. He heard the gorgon sisters screaming and caught a glimpse of Euryale's coral-snake hair at the top of the hill, but he didn't have time to worry about it. The roof of the apartment building loomed below him like the prow of a battleship. Head-on collision in ten, nine, eight…**

Annabeth voice quivered. Percy squeezed her hand reassuringly.

_Fates, _Poseidon pleaded. _Please..._

"Oh my goodness," Hestia clasped a hand elegantly over her mouth.

Lacy and the Aphrodite girls whimpered.

**He managed to swivel sideways to avoid breaking his legs on impact. The snack platter skittered across the roof and sailed through the air. The platter went one way. Percy went the other.**

"NO!" Everybody yelled.

"Did I die?" Percy asked Leo frantically.

"Whoa!" Leo skittered back.

**As he fell toward the highway, a horrible scenario flashed through his mind: his body smashing against an SUV's windshield, some annoyed commuter trying to push him off with the wipers. Stupid sixteen-year-old kid falling from the sky! I'm late!**

Despite the situation, the Stoll brothers, Hermes and Apollo chuckled, but was shushed by Demeter.

**Miraculously, a gust of wind blew him to one side—just enough to miss the highway and crash into a clump of bushes. It wasn't a soft landing, but it was better than asphalt.**

The demigods and gods exhaled.

_All right, _Poseidon thought. _All right. Whoever you are, cloud nymph, wind god, whatever. If you saved my son, I, Poseidon Earthshaker, mighty Lord of the Seas will... owe you one for saving my son. _

**Percy groaned. He wanted to lie there and pass out, but he had to keep moving.**

The demigods grimaced.

"Life is hard," Chris agreed.

**He struggled to his feet. His hands were scratched up, but no bones seemed to be broken. He still had his backpack. Somewhere on the sled ride he'd lost his sword, but Percy knew it would eventually reappear in his pocket in pen form. That was part of its magic.**

**He glanced up the hill. The gorgons were hard to miss, with their colorful snake hair and their bright green Bargain Mart vests. They were picking their way down the slope, going slower than Percy but with a lot more control. Those chicken feet must've been good for climbing. **

The Stoll brothers chortled.

**Percy figured he had maybe five minutes before they reached him.**

Annabeth gasped.

**Next to him, a tall chain-link fence separated the highway from a neighborhood of winding streets, cozy houses, and tall eucalyptus trees. **

"Eucalyptus?" Thalia asked. A vision of Zoe Nightshade dying began startling clear in her mind. Lady Artemis glanced at Thalia. Thalia forced a smile.

**The fence was probably there to keep people from getting onto the highway and doing stupid things—like sledding into the fast lane on snack trays—but the chain-link was full of big holes. Percy could easily slip through into the neighborhood. Maybe he could find a car and drive west to the ocean. He didn't like stealing cars,**

"Dude!" Travis protested.

"Stealing is awesome!" Connor insisted.

"Percy, you should have just stolen it!" Hermes sounded offended. "Not stealing..."

**but over the past few weeks, in life-and-death situations, he'd "borrowed" several, including a police cruiser. He'd meant to return them, but they never seemed to last very long.**

**He glanced east. Just as he'd figured, a hundred yardsuphill the highway cut through the base of the cliff. Two tunnel entrances, one for each direction of traffic, stared down at him like eye sockets of a giant skull. In the middle, where the nose would have been, a cement wall jutted from the hillside, with a metal door like the entrance to a bunker.**

**It might have been a maintenance tunnel. That's probably what mortals thought, if they noticed the door at all. But they couldn't see through the Mist. Percy knew the door was more than that.**

"It is," Hera murmured.

**Two kids in armor flanked the entrance. They wore a bizarre mix of plumed Roman helmets, breastplates, scabbards, blue jeans, purple T-shirts, and white athletic shoes. The guard on the right looked like a girl, though it was hard to tell for sure with all the armor. The one on the left was a stocky guy with a bow and quiver on his back. Both kids held long wooden staffs with iron spear tips, like old-fashioned harpoons.**

**Percy's internal radar was pinging like crazy. After so many horrible days, he'd finally reached his goal. His instincts told him that if he could make it inside that door, he might find safety for the first time since the wolves had sent him south.**

**So why did he feel such dread?**

The gods paled even more.

**Farther up the hill, the gorgons were scrambling over the roof of the apartment complex. Three minutes away—maybe less.**

**Part of him wanted to run to the door in the hill. He'd have to cross to the median of the highway, but then it would be a short sprint. He could make it before the gorgons reached him.**

**Part of him wanted to head west to the ocean. That's where he'd be safest. That's where his power would be greatest. Those Roman guards at the door made him uneasy. Something inside him said: This isn't my territory. This is dangerous.**

"**You're right, of course," said a voice next to him.**

"It's a monster!" Will Solace insisted.

**Percy jumped. At first he thought Beano had managed to sneak up on him again, but the old lady sitting in the bushes was even more repulsive than a gorgon. She looked like a hippie**

"Hippie Hera, Hippie Hera," Apollo sang. Everybody covered their ears.

"Shut up, Apollo," Hera growled.

Apollo silenced, though he continued to hum the tune.

**who'd been kicked to the side of the road maybe forty years ago, where she'd been collecting trash and rags ever since. She wore a dress made of tie-dyed cloth, ripped-up quilts, and plastic grocery bags. Her frizzy mop of hair was gray-brown, like root-beer foam, tied back with a peace-sign headband. Warts and moles covered her face. When she smiled, she showed exactly three teeth.**

Aphrodite gagged along with her cabin.

"**It isn't a maintenance tunnel," she confided. "It's the entrance to camp."**

Zeus groaned inwardly as Jupiter made a flash appearance. Ares's sword turned into a spear for a split second. Athena clutched her head as Minerva broke through.

**A jolt went up Percy's spine. Camp. Yes, that's where he was from. A camp. Maybe this was his home. Maybe Annabeth was close by.**

"Aw..." Aphrodite cooed again. Cabin Ten giggled. Annabeth sighed.

Percy was getting uncomfortable.

**But something felt wrong.**

**The gorgons were still on the roof of the apartment building. Then Stheno shrieked in delight and pointed in Percy's direction.**

**The old hippie lady raised her eyebrows. "Not much time, child. You need to make your choice."**

"Choices... it's always about choices..." Annabeth grumbled.

Hera shot Annabeth a withering look.

"**Who are you?" Percy asked, though he wasn't sure he wanted to know. The last thing he needed was another harmless mortal who turned out to be a monster.**

"A monster! Why, I would never..." Hera spluttered.

"In a way, you are a monster, you know that?" Annabeth snipped. Several gods nodded in approval.

"**Oh, you can call me June." The old lady's eyes sparkled as if she'd made an excellent joke. "It is June, isn't it? They named the month after me!"**

Hera stiffened as Juno came and left.

"**Okay…Look, I should go. Two gorgons are coming. I don't want them to hurt you."**

**June clasped her hands over her heart. "How sweet! But that's part of your choice!"**

"**My choice…" Percy glanced nervously toward the hill. The gorgons had taken off their green vests. Wings sprouted from their backs—small bat wings, which glinted like brass.**

**Since when did they have wings? Maybe they were ornamental. Maybe they were too small to get a gorgon into the air.**

"Please make those wings too small to get them in the air," Percy pleaded.

**Then the two sisters leaped off the apartment building and soared toward him.**

"Just my luck," Percy muttered. The demigods glanced at him sympathetically.

**Great. Just great.**

"That pretty much sums it up," Percy agreed.

Leo fished out the previous day's Legos. He started to build a blocky Lego car.

"**Yes, a choice," June said, as if she were in no hurry. "You could leave me here at the mercy of the gorgons and go to the ocean. You'd make it there safely, I guarantee. The gorgons will be quite happy to attack me and let you go. In the sea, no monster would bother you. You could begin a new life, live to a ripe old age, and escape a great deal of pain and misery that is in your future."**

"Sounds good," Katie said wistfully.

"Don't accept any deals from Hera," Annabeth warned, pausing from the book.

**Percy was pretty sure he wasn't going to like the second option. "Or?"**

"**Or you could do a good deed for an old lady," she said. "Carry me to the camp with you."**

"**Carry you?" Percy hoped she was kidding. Then June hiked up her skirts and showed him her swollen purple feet.**

"Ew..." everyone gagged.

"I can assure you my feet aren't swollen now," Hera said stiffly, a hint of red crawling up her face.

"**I can't get there by myself," she said. "Carry me to camp—across the highway, through the tunnel, across the river."**

**Percy didn't know what river she meant, but it didn't sound easy. June looked pretty heavy.**

"Eat cereal!" Demeter shouted triumphantly. "Eat more cereal, and in a well, you'll be as light as air!"

**The gorgons were only fifty yards away now—leisurely gliding toward him as if they knew the hunt was almost over.**

**Percy looked at the old lady. "And I'd carry you to this camp because—?"**

"**Because it's a kindness!" she said. "And if you don't, the gods will die, the world we know will perish, and everyone from your old life will be destroyed. Of course, you wouldn't remember them, so I suppose it won't matter. You'd be safe at the bottom of the sea.…"**

**Percy swallowed. The gorgons shrieked with laughter as they soared in for the kill.**

"**If I go to the camp," he said, "will I get my memory back?"**

"**Eventually," June said. "But be warned, you will sacrifice much! You'll lose the mark of Achilles. You'll feel pain, misery, and loss beyond anything you've ever known. But you might have a chance to save your old friends and family, to reclaim your old life."**

**The gorgons were circling right overhead. They were probably studying the old woman, trying to figure out who the new player was before they struck.**

"**What about those guards at the door?" Percy asked.**

**June smiled. "Oh, they'll let you in, dear. You can trust those two. So, what do you say? Will you help a defenseless old woman?"**

"Don't help her!" Annabeth said.

"Don't listen to her," Hera scolded bossily. "Of course... help the defenseless old woman!"

**Percy doubted June was defenseless.**

"I definitely am NOT defenseless," Hera agreed.

**At worst, this was a trap. **

"It is a trap," Thalia muttered.

**At best, it was some kind of test.**

"Not a test," Thalia said.

**Percy hated tests. Since he'd lost his memory, his whole life was one big fill-in-the-blank. He was _, from _. He felt like _, and if the monsters caught him, he'd be _.**

"That's a nice fill-in-the-blank test," Drew commented.

**Then he thought about Annabeth, the only part of his old life he was sure about. He had to find her.**

Aphrodite and Cabin Ten were falling into pieces, sobbing and gushing and giggling, except for Drew who rolled her eyes.

"**I'll carry you." He scooped up the old woman. **

**She was lighter than he expected. Percy tried to ignore her sour breath**

Annabeth flinched. Cow poop was bad, but she assumed the Queen of Cow Poop's breath would be about a thousand times worse.

**and her calloused hands clinging to his neck. He made it across the first lane of traffic. A driver honked. Another yelled something that was lost in the wind. Most just swerved and looked irritated, as if they had to deal with a lot of ratty teenagers carrying old hippie women across the freeway here in Berkley. **

The Stoll brothers snorted.

Leo added the wheels to his Lego cars and glanced at it, satisfied. It was actually kind of awesome.

**A shadow fell over him. Stheno called down gleefully, "Clever boy! Found a goddess to carry, did you?"**

**A goddess?**

**June cackled with delight, muttering, "Whoops!" as a car almost killed them.**

Annabeth paused, glaring at Hera. "You wouldn't care if he died, would you?"

"It depends," Hera sniffed, looking superior. "Go on, continue reading."

Leo pushed his Lego car back and forth. Suddenly, it lost control and rolled towards Ares...

**Somewhere off to his left, Euryale screamed, "Get them! Two prizes are better than one!"**

**Percy bolted across the remaining lanes. Somehow he made it to the median alive. He saw the gorgons swooping down, cars swerving as the monsters passed overhead. He wondered what the mortals saw through the Mist—giant pelicans? Off-course hang gliders? The wolf Lupa had told him that mortal minds could believe just about anything—except the truth.**

**Percy ran for the door in the hillside. June got heavier with every step. Percy's heart pounded. His ribs ached.**

**One of the guards yelled. The guy with the bow nocked an arrow. Percy shouted, "Wait!"**

**But the boy wasn't aiming at him. The arrow flew over Percy's head. A gorgon wailed in pain. The second guard readied her spear, gesturing frantically at Percy to hurry.**

**Fifty feet from the door. Thirty feet.**

Ares didn't notice the little car by his feet. Everyone tensed. Percy paled.

"**Gotcha!" **

"NO!" everyone screeched.

**shrieked Euryale. Percy turned as an arrow thudded into her forehead. Euryale tumbled into the fast lane. A truck slammed into her and carried her backward a hundred yards, but she just climbed over the cab, pulled the arrow out of her head, and launched back into the air.**

**Percy reached the door. "Thanks," he told the guards. "Good shot."**

"**That should've killed her!" the archer protested.**

"**Welcome to my world," Percy muttered.**

Percy nodded in agreement. Mostly, he was just relieved he wasn't Gorgon food.

"**Frank," the girl said. "Get them inside, quick! Those are gorgons."**

Ares was about to demolish the little Lego car, but he stopped his foot in mid-air.

_Emily? _Ares thought woozily. He had a brief flashback of Emily racing through a battlefield clogged with dust, smoke and blood, running, yelling orders as she turned into animals, saving her comrades before she fell.

Seeing Ares hesitate, Leo scurried forward and rescued his little car.

"**Gorgons?" The archer's voice squeaked. It was hard to tell much about him under the helmet, but he looked stout like a wrestler, maybe fourteen or fifteen. "Will the door hold them?"**

**In Percy's arms, June cackled. "No, no it won't. Onward, Percy Jackson! Through the tunnel, over the river!"**

"**Percy Jackson?" The female guard was darker-skinned, with curly hair sticking out the sides of her helmet. She looked younger than Frank—maybe thirteen. **

Hades flinched. Could it be...

**Her sword scabbard came down almost to her ankle. Still, she sounded like she was the one in charge. "Okay, you're obviously a demigod. But who's the—?" She glanced at June. "Never mind. Just get inside. I'll hold them off."**

"**Hazel," the boy said. "Don't be crazy."**

"Oh no," Hades groaned softly. He suddenly remembered Marie yelling at him about the cursed child. He had no idea... or... he really didn't know what to think.

"**Go!" she demanded.**

**Frank cursed in another language—was that Latin?—and opened the door. "Come on!"**

**Percy followed, staggering under the weight of the old lady, who was definitely getting heavier. He didn't know how that girl Hazel would hold off the gorgons by herself, but he was too tired to argue.**

**The tunnel cut through solid rock, about the width and height of a school hallway. At first, it looked like a typical maintenance tunnel, with electric cables, warning signs, and fuse boxes on the walls, lightbulbs in wire cages along the ceiling. As they ran deeper into the hillside, the cement floor changed to tiled mosaic. The lights changed to reed torches, which burned but didn't smoke. A few hundred yards ahead, Percy saw a square of daylight.**

**The old lady was heavier now than a pile of sandbags. Percy's arms shook from the strain. June mumbled a song in Latin, like a lullaby, which didn't help Percy concentrate.**

**Behind them, the gorgons' voices echoed in the tunnel. Hazel shouted. Percy was tempted to dump June and runback to help,**

"Dump her and help those demigods!" Clarisse yelled. "Fight, you cowardly little punk!" She brandished Lamer the Third, as if preparing to fight nonexistent gorgons the very second.

**but then the entire tunnel shook with the rumble of falling stone. There was a squawking sound, just like the gorgons had made when Percy had dropped a crate of bowling balls on them in Napa. He glanced back. The west end of the tunnel was now filled with dust.**

"**Shouldn't we check on Hazel?" he asked.**

"**She'll be okay—I hope," Frank said. "She's good underground. Just keep moving! We're almost there."**

"**Almost where?"**

**June chuckled. "All roads lead there, child. You should know that."**

"**Detention?" Percy asked.**

Everybody chuckled. Even Annabeth cracked a smile.

Leo quickly dismantled his Lego car, placed them back into his tool belt and wondered what to do next.

"**Rome, child," the old woman said. "Rome."**

**Percy wasn't sure he'd heard her right. True, his memory was gone. His brain hadn't felt right since he had woken up at the Wolf House. But he was pretty sure Rome wasn't in California.**

Hermes snorted.

**They kept running. The glow at the end of the tunnel grew brighter, and finally they burst into sunlight.**

**Percy froze. Spread out at his feet was a bowl-shaped valley several miles wide. The basin floor was rumpled with smaller hills, golden plains, and stretches of forest. A small clear rivercut a winding course from a lake in the center and around the perimeter, like a capital G.**

Annabeth's voice lingered, drawing out every syllable. Unconsciously, she took out a few pieces of scrap paper and began sketching New Rome while reading at the same time. Leo had no idea how she could do that. Even Hephaestus looked impressed.

**The geography could've been anywhere in northern California—live oaks and eucalyptus trees, gold hills and blue skies. That big inland mountain—what was it called, Mount Diablo?—rose in the distance, right where it should be.**

**But Percy felt like he'd stepped into a secret world. In the center of the valley, nestled by the lake, was a small city of white marble buildings with red-tiled roofs. Some had domes and columned porticoes, like national monuments. Others looked like palaces, with golden doors and large gardens. He could see an open plaza with freestanding columns, fountains, and statues. A five-story-tall Roman coliseum gleamed in the sun, next to a long oval arena like a racetrack.**

**Across the lake to the south, another hill was dotted with even more impressive buildings—temples, Percy guessed. Several stone bridges crossed the river as it wound through the valley, and in the north, a long line of brickwork arches stretched from the hills into the town. Percy thought it looked like an elevated train track. Then he realized it must be an aqueduct.**

**The strangest part of the valley was right below him. About two hundred yards away, just across the river, was some sort of military encampment. It was about a quarter mile square, with earthen ramparts on all four sides, the tops lined with sharpened spikes. Outside the walls ran a dry moat, also studded with spikes. Wooden watchtowers rose at each corner, manned by sentries with oversized, mounted crossbows. Purple banners hung from the towers. A wide gateway opened on the far side of camp, leading toward the city. A narrower gate stood closed on the riverbank side. Inside, the fortress bustled with activity: dozens of kids going to and from barracks, carrying weapons, polishing armor. Percy heard the clank of hammers at a forge and smelled meat cooking over a fire.**

**Something about this place felt very familiar, yet not quite right.**

"**Camp Jupiter," Frank said. "We'll be safe once—"**

**Footsteps echoed in the tunnel behind them. Hazel burst into the light. She was covered with stone dust and breathing hard. She'd lost her helmet, so her curly brown hair fell around her shoulders. Her armor had long slash marks in front from the claws of a gorgon. One of the monsters had tagged her with a 50% off sticker.**

The Stoll brothers chuckled.

Leo grabbed a sheet of 50% off stickers and tagged the Stoll brothers. When the Stoll brothers realized that, it was too late. Most of the assembly were already laughing. Leo stumbled back as the Stoll brothers began to yell, chasing him with 50% off stickers.

"**I slowed them down," she said. "But they'll be here any second."**

**Frank cursed. "We have to get across the river."**

**June squeezed Percy's neck tighter. "Oh, yes, please. I can't get my dress wet."**

"Really?!" Annabeth demanded. "Percy's life is in danger, and all you care about is your stinking, stupid dress? Hera!"

**Percy bit his tongue. If this lady was a goddess, she must've been the goddess of smelly, heavy, useless hippies. **

Apollo, Hephaestus, Ares, Poseidon, Hermes and the Stoll brothers didn't even try to stifle their laughter.

"Goddess of smelly, heavy, useless hippies," Ares boomed. "I like that,"

"Agreed, brother," Hephaestus agreed, his pockmarked face in a wide grin.

Zeus tried to maintain order, but failed.

**But he'd come this far. He'd better keep lugging her along.**

**It's a kindness, she'd said. And if you don't, the gods will die, the world we know will perish, and everyone from your old life will be destroyed.**

**If this was a test, he couldn't afford to get an F.**

A few demigods chuckled.

**He stumbled a few times as they ran for the river. Frank and Hazel kept him on his feet.**

**They reached the riverbank, and Percy stopped to catch his breath. The current was fast, but the river didn't look deep. Only a stone's throw across stood the gates of the fort.**

"**Go, Hazel." Frank nocked two arrows at once. "Escort Percy so the sentries don't shoot him. It's my turn to hold off the baddies."**

Ares smiled in pride.

**Hazel nodded and waded into the stream.**

**Percy started to follow, but something made him hesitate. Usually he loved the water, but this river seemed…powerful, and not necessarily friendly.**

Poseidon and Percy frowned.

"**The Little Tiber," said June sympathetically. "It flows with the power of the original Tiber, river of the empire. This is your last chance to back out, child. The mark of Achilles is a Greek blessing. You can't retain it if you cross into Roman territory. The Tiber will wash it away."**

**Percy was too exhausted to understand all that, but he got the main point. "If I cross, I won't have iron skin anymore?"**

**June smiled. "So what will it be? Safety, or a future of pain and possibility?"**

**Behind him, the gorgons screeched as they flew from the tunnel. Frank let his arrows fly.**

**From the middle of the river, Hazel yelled, "Percy, come on!"**

**Up on the watchtowers, horns blew. The sentries shouted and swiveled their crossbows toward the gorgons.**

**Annabeth, Percy thought. **

Apparently, Aphrodite had trouble turning off her cooing button.

**He forged into the river. It was icy cold, much swifter than he'd imagined, but that didn't bother him. New strength surged through his limbs. His senses tingled like he'd been injected with caffeine. He reached the other side and put the old woman down as the camp's gates opened. Dozens of kids in armor poured out.**

**Hazel turned with a relieved smile. Then she looked over Percy's shoulder, and her expression changed to horror. "Frank!"**

**Frank was halfway across the river when the gorgons caught him. They swooped out of the sky and grabbed him by either arm. He screamed in pain as their claws dug into his skin.**

Ares flinched violently. He grasped his armrests, crushing the steel laced wood.

**The sentries yelled, but Percy knew they couldn't get a clear shot. They'd end up killing Frank. The other kids drew swords and got ready to charge into the water, but they'd be too late.**

**There was only one way.**

**Percy thrust out his hands. An intense tugging sensation filled his gut, and the Tiber obeyed his will. The river surged. Whirlpools formed on either side of Frank. Giant watery hands erupted from the stream, copying Percy's movements. The giant hands grabbed the gorgons, who dropped Frank in surprise. Then the hands lifted the squawking monsters in a liquid vise grip.**

**Percy heard the other kids yelping and backing away, but he stayed focused on his task. He made a smashing gesture with his fists, and the giant hands plunged the gorgons into the Tiber. The monsters hit bottom and broke into dust. Glittering clouds of gorgon essence struggled to re-form, but the river pulled them apart like a blender. Soon every trace of the gorgons was swept downstream. The whirlpools vanished, and the current returned to normal.**

"Nice job, son!" Poseidon said proudly. Percy looked shocked, but slightly pleased.

**Percy stood on the riverbank. His clothes and his skin steamed as if the Tiber's waters had given him an acid bath. He felt exposed, raw…vulnerable.**

**In the middle of the Tiber, Frank stumbled around, looking stunned but perfectly fine. Hazel waded out and helped him ashore. Only then did Percy realize how quiet the other kids had become.**

**Everyone was staring at him. Only the old lady June looked unfazed.**

"**Well, that was a lovely trip," she said. **

"Oh, I bet it is," Thalia growled.

Artemis wondered how her best lieutenant suddenly sounded like a really angry bear.

"**Thank you, Percy Jackson, for bringing me to Camp Jupiter."**

**One of the girls made a choking sound. "Percy…Jackson?"**

**She sounded as if she recognized his name. Percy focused on her, hoping to see a familiar face.**

**She was obviously a leader. She wore a regal purple cloak over her armor. Her chest was decorated with medals. She must have been about Percy's age, with dark, piercing eyes and long black hair. Percy didn't recognize her, but the girl stared at him as if she'd seen him in her nightmares.**

Percy and Annabeth paled, along with Grover, Tyson and a few others.

"Circe's Island," Annabeth choked out.

"You know her?" Demeter asked.

Annabeth nodded numbly. "She was the one who combed my hair. Then, we burned the spa down."

**June laughed with delight. "Oh, yes. You'll have such fun together!"**

"Hera," Percy snarled.

Hera shrugged.

**Then, just because the day hadn't been weird enough already, the old lady began to glow and change form. She grew until she was a shining, seven-foot-tall goddess in a blue dress, with a cloak that looked like goat's skin over her shoulders. Her face was stern and stately. In her hand was a staff topped with a lotus flower.**

**If it was possible for the campers to look more stunned, they did. The girl with the purple cloak knelt. The others followed her lead. One kid got down so hastily he almost impaled himself on his sword.**

"Kneeling down to a goddess... that's respect," Hera said smugly.

**Hazel was the first to speak. "Juno."**

**She and Frank also fell to their knees, leaving Percy the only one standing. He knew he should probably kneel too, but after carrying the old lady so far, he didn't feel like showing her that much respect.**

"**Juno, huh?" he said. "If I passed your test, can I have my memory and my life back?"**

**The goddess smiled. "In time, Percy Jackson, if you succeed here at camp. You've done well today, which is a good start. Perhaps there's hope for you yet."**

**She turned to the other kids. "Romans, I present to you the son of Neptune. For months he has been slumbering, but now he is awake. His fate is in your hands. The Feast of Fortune comes quickly, and Death must be unleashed if you are to stand any hope in the battle. Do not fail me!"**

**Juno shimmered and disappeared. Percy looked at Hazel and Frank for some kind of explanation, but they seemed just as confused as he was. Frank was holding something Percy hadn't noticed before—two small clay flasks with cork stoppers, like potions, one in each hand. **

_Gorgon's blood. _Athena thought.

**Percy had no idea where they'd come from, but he saw Frank slip them into his pockets. Frank gave him a look like: We'll talk about it later.**

**The girl in the purple cloak stepped forward. She examined Percy warily, and Percy couldn't shake the feeling that she wanted to run him through with her dagger.**

"**So," she said coldly, "a son of Neptune, who comes to us with the blessing of Juno."**

"**Look," he said, "my memory's a little fuzzy. Um, it's gone, actually. Do I know you?"**

**The girl hesitated. "I am Reyna, praetor of the Twelfth Legion. And…no, I don't know you."**

**That last part was a lie. Percy could tell from her eyes. But he also understood that if he argued with her about it here, in front of her soldiers, she wouldn't appreciate it.**

"**Hazel," said Reyna, "bring him inside. I want to question him at the principia. Then we'll send him to Octavian. **

Apollo grasped his armrests. Octavian, that good-for-nothing pile of scarecrow scum.

**We must consult the auguries before we decide what to do with him."**

"**What do you mean," Percy asked, "'decide what to do with' me?"**

**Reyna's hand tightened on her dagger. Obviously she was not used to having her orders questioned. "Before we accept anyone into camp, we must interrogate them and read the auguries. Juno said your fate is in our hands. We have to know whether the goddess has brought us as a new recruit.…"**

**Reyna studied Percy as if she found that doubtful.**

"**Or," she said more hopefully, "if she's brought us an enemy to kill."**

"Done," Annabeth clasped the book shut.

"Please don't make them kill me," Percy said.

There was a moment of silence.

Leo plopped back down on his seat, gasping. The Stoll brothers pelted him with 50% off stickers.

"I'll read," Hestia volunteered.

Annabeth handed the book over, and Hestia began.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hi, everyone!**

**I am really, honestly sorry to say that I might take some time to write these chapters. As you can see, they are... long. So, I'll be updating every two or three days. **

**Please R&R. I really need those reviews!**

**PS: the words in bold belong to Rick Riordan. **

**Chapter Three**

"**Percy III", **Hestia began.

_How many Percy chapters are there? _Percy wondered. In a way, he was a little grateful that Hera wiped his memory. At least they wouldn't be spotlighting certain very embarrassing moments of his life.

**Percy wasn't scared of ghosts, which was lucky. Half the people in camp were dead.**

"Huh?" Annabeth said. "How can people be... dead... and...?"

**Shimmering purple warriors stood outside the armory, polishing ethereal swords. Others hung out in front of the barracks. A ghostly boy chased a ghostly dog down the street. And at the stables, a big glowing red dude with the head of a wolf guarded a herd of…Were those unicorns?**

"Unicorns?" Annabeth looked even more puzzled.

"Pink fluffy unicorns, dancing on rainbows... Pink fluffy unicorns, dancing on rainbows..." Travis and Connor sang obnoxiously.

**None of the campers paid the ghosts much attention, but as Percy's entourage walked by, with Reyna in the lead and Frank and Hazel on either side, all the spirits stopped what they were doing and stared at Percy. A few looked angry. The little boy ghost shrieked something like "Greggus!" and turned invisible.**

"Greggus?" Annabeth asked, puzzled. "Does he mean Graecus?"

**Percy wished he could turn invisible too. After weeks on his own, all this attention made him uneasy. He stayed between Hazel and Frank and tried to look inconspicuous.**

"**Am I seeing things?" he asked. "Or are those—"**

"**Ghosts?" Hazel turned. She had startling eyes, like fourteen-karat gold. "They're Lares. House gods."**

"**House gods," Percy said. "Like…smaller than real gods, but larger than apartment gods?"**

"**They're ancestral spirits," Frank explained. He'd removed his helmet, revealing a babyish face that didn't go with his military haircut or his big burly frame. He looked like a toddler who'd taken steroids and joined the Marines.**

Travis and Connor unconsciously glanced at Pollux, who looked very similar to Frank.

"**The Lares are kind of like mascots," he continued. "Mostly they're harmless, but I've never seen them so agitated."**

"**They're staring at me," Percy said. "That ghost kid called me Greggus. My name isn't Greg."**

"**Graecus," Hazel said. "Once you've been here awhile, you'll start understanding Latin. Demigods have a natural sense for it. Graecus means Greek."**

"**Is that bad?" Percy asked.**

The demigods glanced at the gods. The gods shrugged.

**Frank cleared his throat. "Maybe not. You've got that type of complexion, the dark hair and all. Maybe they think you're actually Greek. Is your family from there?"**

"**Don't know. Like I said, my memory is gone."**

"**Or maybe…" Frank hesitated.**

"**What?" Percy asked.**

"**Probably nothing," Frank said. "Romans and Greeks have an old rivalry. Sometimes Romans use graecus as an insult **

"An insult!" Clarisse spluttered.

"What?" Travis and Connor exclaimed. "We're Greek... we're not insults!"

"Actually, you are," Katie muttered.

The demigods muttered some rather unflattering comments about Romans.

Leo grabbed some Popsicle sticks from his tool belt. He used Superglue to glue them together.

**for someone who's an outsider—an enemy. I wouldn't worry about it."**

**He sounded pretty worried.**

**They stopped at the center of camp, where two wide stone-paved roads met at a T.**

**A street sign labeled the road to the main gates as via praetoria. The other road, cutting across the middle of camp, was labeled via principalis. Under those markers were hand-painted signs like berkeley 5 miles; NEW ROME 1 MILE; OLD ROME 7280 MILES;**

The gods chuckled at this one.

_Despite everything, I miss Old Rome, _Hermes thought wistfully. _For one, the word 'sarcasm' wasn't invented yet. _

**HADES 2310 MILES**

Hades cracked a little smile. _Let them know what the REAL Hades looks like, _he mused darkly.

**(pointing straight down); RENO 208 MILES, AND CERTAIN DEATH: YOU ARE HERE!**

"Isn't death just always here?" Chris muttered.

**For certain death, the place looked pretty clean and orderly. The buildings were freshly whitewashed, laid out in neat grids like the camp had been designed by a fussy math teacher. The barracks had shady porches, where campers lounged in hammocks or played cards and drank sodas. Each dorm had a different collection of banners out front displaying Roman numerals and various animals—eagle, bear, wolf, horse, and something that looked like a hamster.**

"Hamster?" Zeus spluttered.

Leo glanced at his masterpiece: a Popsicle Stick box. Hm...

**Along the Via Praetoria, rows of shops advertised food, armor, weapons, coffee, gladiator equipment, and toga rentals. A chariot dealership had a big advertisement out front: CAESAR XLS W/ANTILOCK BRAKES, NO DENARII DOWN!**

**At one corner of the crossroads stood the most impressive building—a two-story wedge of white marble with a columned portico like an old-fashioned bank. Roman guards stood out front. Over the doorway hung a big purple banner with the gold letters SPQR embroidered inside a laurel wreath.**

"**Your headquarters?" Percy asked.**

**Reyna faced him, her eyes still cold and hostile. "It's called the principia."**

**She scanned the mob of curious campers who had followed them from the river. "Everyone back to your duties. I'll give you an update at evening muster. Remember, we have war games after dinner."**

"YES!" Ares whooped as he threw knives up at the ceiling. One of them fell down, chopping Leo's Popsicle Stick box neatly in half.

After giving the god of war the most threatening glare he could muster, Leo pondered what to do next.

**The thought of dinner made Percy's stomach rumble. **

Percy's stomach rumbled.

**The scent of barbecue from the dining hall made his mouth water. **

"Seaweed Brain!" Annabeth hissed.

Percy quickly shut his mouth before his saliva actually started to spill out.

**The bakery down the street smelled pretty wonderful too, but he doubted Reyna would let him get an order to go.**

Percy looked heartbroken.

**The crowd dispersed reluctantly. Some muttered comments about Percy's chances.**

"**He's dead," said one.**

"**Would be those two who found him," said another.**

"**Yeah," muttered another. "Let him join the Fifth Cohort. Greeks and geeks."**

The Greeks gawped.

"Greeks and Geeks?" Drew growled.

"I'll show them!" Clarisse roared. Chris barely managed to grab her in time.

**Several kids laughed at that, but Reyna scowled at them, and they cleared off.**

"**Hazel," Reyna said. "Come with us. I want your report on what happened at the gates."**

"**Me too?" Frank said. "Percy saved my life. We've got to let him—"**

**Reyna gave Frank such a harsh look, he stepped back.**

"**I'd remind you, Frank Zhang," she said, "you are on probatio yourself. You've caused enough trouble this week."**

**Frank's ears turned red. He fiddled with a little tablet on a cord around his neck. Percy hadn't paid much attention to it, but it looked like a name tag made out of lead.**

"**Go to the armory," Reyna told him. "Check our inventory. I'll call you if I need you."**

"**But—" Frank caught himself. "Yes, Reyna."**

**He hurried off. **

**Reyna waved Hazel and Percy toward the headquarters. "Now, Percy Jackson, let's see if we can improve your memory."**

**The principia was even more impressive inside. On the ceiling glittered a mosaic of Romulus and Remus under their adopted mama she-wolf (Lupa had told Percy that story a million times). The floor was polished marble. The walls were draped in velvet, so Percy felt like he was inside the world's most expensive camping tent. Along the back wall stood a display of banners and wooden poles studded with bronze medals—military symbols, Percy guessed. In the center was one empty display stand, as if the main banner had been taken down for cleaning or something.**

Annabeth grabbed another sheet of paper and began to jot down notes.

**In the back corner, a stairwell led down. It was blocked by a row of iron bars like a prison door. Percy wondered what was down there—monsters? Treasure? Amnesiac demigods who had gotten on Reyna's bad side?**

Percy hoped the bars weren't for Choice 3.

**In the center of the room, a long wooden table was cluttered with scrolls, notebooks, tablet computers, daggers, and a large bowl filled with jelly beans,**

"Jelly beans?" Percy asked.

Annabeth shrugged as she began listing down Jelly Bean flavors.

**which seemed kind of out of place. Two life-sized statues of greyhounds—one silver, one gold—flanked the table. Reyna walked behind the table and sat in one of two high-backed chairs. Percy wished he could sit in the other, but Hazel remained standing. Percy got the feeling he was supposed to also.**

"**So…" he started to say.**

**The dog statues bared their teeth and growled.**

**Percy froze. Normally he liked dogs, but these glared at him with ruby eyes. Their fangs looked sharp as razors.**

Annabeth's head snapped up.

"Read slower!" Annabeth cried. "I need to get the image right..."

Hestia gave Annabeth a questioning look and read slower.

Leo grumbled.

"**Easy, guys," Reyna told the greyhounds.**

**They stopped growling, but kept eyeing Percy as though they were imagining him in a doggie bag.**

Travis and Connor snorted.

"**They won't attack," Reyna said, "unless you try to steal something, or unless I tell them to. That's Argentum and Aurum."**

"**Silver and Gold," Percy said. The Latin meanings popped into his head like Hazel had said they would. He almost asked which dog was which. Then he realized that that was a stupid question.**

"Definitely," Annabeth agreed.

**Reyna set her dagger on the table. Percy had the vague feeling he'd seen her before. Her hair was black and glossy as volcanic rock, woven in a single braid down her back. She had the poise of a sword fighter—relaxed yet vigilant, as if ready to spring into action at any moment. The worry lines around her eyes made her look older than she probably was.**

"**We have met," he decided. "I don't remember when. Please, if you can tell me anything—"**

"**First things first," Reyna said. "I want to hear your story. What do you remember? How did you get here? And don't lie. My dogs don't like liars."**

**Argentum and Aurum snarled to emphasize the point.**

Artemis shivered. She didn't know if it was for pleasure or revolution. The dogs were definitely beautiful and wild, but the way they followed their master... they would jump off a cliff if Reyna told them to.

**Percy told his story—how he'd woken up at the ruined mansion in the woods of Sonoma. He described his time with Lupa and her pack, learning their language of gestures and expressions, learning to survive and fight.**

**Lupa had taught him about demigods, monsters, and gods. She'd explained that she was one of the guardian spirits of Ancient Rome. Demigods like Percy were still responsible for carrying on Roman traditions in modern times—fighting monsters, serving the gods,**

"Oh, we're definitely made to serve the gods," Annabeth said bitterly.

The demigods murmured in agreement.

"Watch your tongue, Annabeth Chase," Hera snipped. "If you continue to speak in such a superior tone, I swear I will turn you into a cow,"

**protecting mortals, and upholding the memory of the empire. She'd spent weeks training him, until he was as strong and tough and vicious as a wolf. When she was satisfied with his skills, she'd sent him south, telling him that if he survived the journey, he might find a new home and regain his memory.**

**None of it seemed to surprise Reyna. In fact, she seemed to find it pretty ordinary—except for one thing.**

"**No memory at all?" she asked. "You still remember nothing?"**

"**Fuzzy bits and pieces." Percy glanced at the greyhounds. He didn't want to mention Annabeth. It seemed too private, and he was still confused about where to find her. He was sure they'd met at a camp—but this one didn't feel like the right place.**

"It isn't the right place," Grover agreed, stuttering a bit. "Greeks are better than Romans... right?"

His statement was awarded by cheers and a kiss from Juniper.

**Also, he was reluctant to share his one clear memory: Annabeth's face, her blond hair and gray eyes, the way she laughed, threw her arms around him, and gave him a kiss whenever he did something stupid.**

Annabeth kissed Percy to prove the point.

Aphrodite cooed.

Leo gagged.

**She must have kissed me a lot, Percy thought.**

Annabeth continued to smooch Percy.

_Well... _Aphrodite was grinning like a madman, but the grin was starting to waver. _Well, that's a little... too intense..._

**He feared that if he spoke about that memory to anyone, it would evaporate like a dream. He couldn't risk that.**

Athena grumbled.

**Reyna spun her dagger. "Most of what you're describing is normal for demigods. At a certain age, one way or another, we find our way to the Wolf House. We're tested and trained.**

**If Lupa thinks we're worthy, she sends us south to join the legion. But I've never heard of someone losing his memory. How did you find Camp Jupiter?"**

**Percy told her about the last three days—the gorgons who wouldn't die, the old lady who turned out to be a goddess, and finally meeting Hazel and Frank at the tunnel in the hill.**

**Hazel took the story from there. She described Percy as brave and heroic, which made him uncomfortable. All he'd done was carry a hippie bag lady.**

"Will you STOP calling me a hippie bag lady!" Hera ordered.

Percy shrugged. "Sorry, hippie bag lady. I have no control whatsoever over the future me,"

**Reyna studied him. "You're old for a recruit. You're what, sixteen?"**

"**I think so," Percy said.**

"**If you spent that many years on your own, without training or help, you should be dead. A son of Neptune? You'd have a powerful aura that would attract all kinds of monsters."**

"**Yeah," Percy said. "I've been told that I smell."**

"When you put it like that, it makes it seem as if you don't shower," Lacy noted.

"Well... I didn't really shower," Percy said sheepishly. "I mean, how could I when I'm running away from gorgons 24/7?"

**Reyna almost cracked a smile, which gave Percy hope. Maybe she was human after all.**

"**You must've been somewhere before the Wolf House," she said.**

**Percy shrugged. Juno had said something about him slumbering, and he did have a vague feeling that he'd been asleep—maybe for a long time. But that didn't make sense.**

**Reyna sighed. "Well, the dogs haven't eaten you, so I suppose you're telling the truth."**

"**Great," Percy said. "Next time, can I take a polygraph?"**

Everyone chortled.

**Reyna stood. She paced in front of the banners. Her metal dogs watched her go back and forth.**

"**Even if I accept that you're not an enemy," she said, "you're not a typical recruit. The Queen of Olympus simply doesn't appear at camp, announcing a new demigod. The last time a major god visited us in person like that…" She shook her head. "I've only heard legends about such things. And a son of Neptune…that's not a good omen. Especially now."**

"**What's wrong with Neptune?" Percy asked. **

Poseidon smiled proudly. Most demigods complained about their godly parents, but not his son.

"**And what do you mean, 'especially now'?"**

**Hazel shot him a warning look.**

**Reyna kept pacing. "You've fought Medusa's sisters, who haven't been seen in thousands of years. You've agitated our Lares, who are calling you a graecus. And you wear strange symbols—that shirt, the beads on your necklace. What do they mean?"**

**Percy looked down at his tattered orange T-shirt. It might have had words on it at one point, but they were too faded to read. He should have thrown the shirt away weeks ago. It was worn to shreds, but he couldn't bear to get rid of it. He just kept washing it in streams and water fountains as best he could and putting it back on.**

"Ha!" Hera cried out triumphantly. "Who's the hippie bag lady now? Washing your tattered old shirt in streams and fountains... that's typical hippie bag lady attitude!"

"I'm not a lady!" Percy pointed out. "I'm a teenage boy,"

Everyone chuckled. Hera turned a few shades redder and pressed her lips into a hard line. Her joke had backfired.

_I will not let that insolent son of Poseidon get under my skin! _Hera vowed.

Leo grabbed a crinkled sheet of paper and started to fold it.

**As for the necklace, the four clay beads were each decorated with a different symbol. One showed a trident. Another displayed a miniature Golden Fleece. The third was etched with the design of a maze, and the last had an image of a building—maybe the Empire State Building?—with names Percy didn't recognize engraved around it.**

The gods and demigods bowed their heads, fingering their own beads, remembering the lives sacrificed to end the war.

**The beads felt important, like pictures from a family album, but he couldn't remember what they meant.**

"They are important," Hestia agreed. "Family is very important,"

"**I don't know," he said.**

"**And your sword?" Reyna asked.**

**Percy checked his pocket. The pen had reappeared as it always did. He pulled it out, but then realized he'd never shown Reyna the sword. Hazel and Frank hadn't seen it either. How had Reyna known about it?**

**Too late to pretend it didn't exist.…He uncapped the pen. Riptide sprang to full form. Hazel gasped. The greyhounds barked apprehensively.**

"**What is that?" Hazel asked. "I've never seen a sword like that."**

"**I have," Reyna said darkly. "It's very old—a Greek design. We used to have a few in the armory before…" She stopped herself. "The metal is called Celestial bronze. It's deadly to monsters, like Imperial gold, but even rarer."**

"**Imperial gold?" Percy asked.**

**Reyna unsheathed her dagger. Sure enough, the blade was gold. "The metal was consecrated in ancient times, at the Pantheon in Rome. Its existence was a closely guarded secret of the emperors—a way for their champions to slay monsters that threatened the empire. We used to have more weapons like this, but now…well, we scrape by. I use this dagger. Hazel has a spatha, a cavalry sword. Most legionnaires use a shorter sword called a gladius. But that weapon of yours is not Roman at all. It's another sign you're not a typical demigod. And your arm..."**

"**What about it?" Percy asked.**

**Reyna held up her own forearm. Percy hadn't noticed before, but she had a tattoo on the inside: the letters SPQR, a crossed sword and torch, and under that, four parallel lines like score marks.**

**Percy glanced at Hazel.**

"**We all have them," she confirmed, holding up her arm. "All full members of the legion do."**

**Hazel's tattoo also had the letters SPQR, but she only had one score mark, and her emblem was different: a black glyph like a cross with curved arms and a head:**

**Percy looked at his own arms. A few scrapes, some mud, and a fleck of Crispy Cheese 'n' Wiener, but no tattoos.**

Leo tossed the crumpled paper ball into the recycling bin. He picked out a couple of screwdrivers and tossed them up to the ceiling. Ares noticed what he was doing, and grinned wolfishly.

"**So you've never been a member of the legion," Reyna said. "These marks can't be removed. I thought perhaps…" She shook her head, as if dismissing an idea.**

**Hazel leaned forward. "If he's survived as a loner all this time, maybe he's seen Jason."**

The demigods held their breath.

**She turned to Percy. "Have you ever met a demigod like us before? A guy in a purple shirt, with marks on his arm—"**

"**Hazel." Reyna's voice tightened. "Percy's got enough to worry about."**

**Percy touched the point of his sword, and Riptide shrank back into a pen. "I haven't seen anyone like you guys before. Who's Jason?"**

**Reyna gave Hazel an irritated look. "He is…he was my colleague." She waved her hand at the second empty chair. "The legion normally has two elected praetors. Jason Grace, son of Jupiter, was our other praetor until he disappeared last October."**

Jupiter smiled proudly. His son was wonderful.

**Percy tried to calculate. He hadn't paid much attention to the calendar out in the wilderness, but Juno had mentioned that it was now June. "You mean he's been gone eight months, and you haven't replaced him?"**

"**He might not be dead," Hazel said. "We haven't given up."**

**Reyna grimaced. Percy got the feeling this guy Jason might've been more to her than just a colleague.**

Aphrodite tensed. Her love senses tingled.

"**Elections only happen in two ways," Reyna said. "Either the legion raises someone on a shield after a major success on the battlefield—and we haven't had any major battles—or we hold a ballot on the evening of June 24, at the Feast of Fortuna. That's in five days."**

**Percy frowned. "You have a feast for tuna?"**

"I have nothing to do with tuna!"

The demigods yelped and covered their eyes. The satyrs and nymphs did the same. When they dared to look again, they saw a fierce woman dressed in Roman robes, glaring angrily at the books.

"Fortuna," Zeus suddenly changed into an old guy with a pinstriped suit. "You are not allowed in here,"

Athena cried out as she turned into Minerva. Demeter grimaced as Ceres made a flash appearance. Dionysus yawned lazily as he turned into Bacchus, still carelessly reading a Wine Magazine.

"This is a Greek Meeting," Zeus rumbled.

"Well, they are insulting my name," Fortuna sniffed. She snapped her fingers and a throne appeared. "This gives me a free passage. I shall sit here and listen to the story as well,"

After a few complaints, the gods shifted back into their Greek aspects.

_Curse that Fortuna, _Athena grumbled. Minerva was a pounding headache now, straining to break free.

"**Fortuna," Hazel corrected. "She's the goddess of luck. Whatever happens on her feast day can affect the entire rest of the year. She can grant the camp good luck…or really bad luck."**

Fortuna grinned wickedly at that.

**Reyna and Hazel both glanced at the empty display stand, as if thinking about what was missing.**

**A chill went down Percy's back. "The Feast of Fortune…The gorgons mentioned that. So did Juno. They said the camp was going to be attacked on that day, something about a big bad goddess named Gaea, and an army, and Death being unleashed. You're telling me that day is this week?"**

**Reyna's fingers tightened around the hilt of her dagger.**

"**You will say nothing about that outside this room," she ordered. "I will not have you spreading more panic in the camp."**

"**So it's true," Percy said. "Do you know what's going to happen? Can we stop it?"**

**Percy had just met these people. He wasn't sure he even liked Reyna. But he wanted to help. They were demigods, the same as him. They had the same enemies. Besides, Percy remembered what Juno had told him: it wasn't just this camp at risk. His old life, the gods, and the entire world might be destroyed. Whatever was coming down, it was huge.**

"**We've talked enough for now," Reyna said. "Hazel, take him to Temple Hill. Find Octavian. **

Apollo gritted his teeth. He was tempted to vaporize Octavion, that scrawny shrimp, but he didn't.

Leo grabbed the fallen screwdrivers and began to twiddle his thumbs.

**On the way you can answer Percy's questions. Tell him about the legion."**

"**Yes, Reyna."**

**Percy still had so many questions, his brain felt like it would melt. But Reyna made it clear the audience was over. She sheathed her dagger. The metal dogs stood and growled, inching toward Percy.**

"**Good luck with the augury, Percy Jackson," she said. "If Octavian lets you live, perhaps we can compare notes…about your past."**

"Done," Hestia closed the book. "Who's going to read next?"

"I will," Fortuna said grandly. She strutted over to the hearth and snitched the book from Hestia. She flounced back to her seat, sat down graciously and opened the book dramatically.

_If that lady's fortune, I don't think I'll like her very much, _Leo thought. Oh wait... Fortuna did sort of ruin his life. His fortune was just naturally that bad.

_She's so snooty. _Aphrodite felt squirmy all of a sudden. Her cushions seemed to harden under her. She really didn't like Fortuna.

_The Fortuna lady is reading my thoughts, _Percy thought grumpily. _Terrific. How many more Percy chapters are there? Please make this the last one..._

"**Percy IV" **Fortuna spoke. Her voice sounded like a spoiled, whiny child.

"Great, just great," Percy groaned.


	4. Chapter 4

**Hello, everyone. **

**Here's an update. I probably won't update tomorrow, since there's a whole bunch of tests for me to study. **

**In any way, enjoy! The words in bold belong to Rick Riordan. **

**Chapter Four**

"**Percy IV," **Fortuna began.

Percy released an inward groan.

**On the way out of camp, Hazel bought him an espresso drink and a cherry muffin from Bombilo the two-headed coffee merchant.**

"Two heads?" Connor asked blankly.

"Dude!" Travis elbowed Connor. "That would be so awesome. Like, if we each have two more heads..."

"More prank ideas!" Connor finished energetically.

Katie looked up hopefully. Are the twins out of ideas for once...?

"Not that we are out of ideas or anything..." Travis said quickly. Katie's shoulders slumped. She seriously hoped that she could have at least one day of peace and quiet before those tricksters began causing chaos again.

**Percy inhaled the muffin. The coffee was great. Now, Percy thought, if he could just get a shower, a change of clothes, and some sleep, he'd be golden. Maybe even Imperial golden.**

Percy's stomach rumbled loudly. Annabeth gave her boyfriend a glare. Percy shrugged in return. Nico scowled.

**He watched a bunch of kids in swimsuits and towels head into a building that had steam coming out of a row of chimneys. Laughter and watery sounds echoed from inside, like it was an indoor pool—Percy's kind of place.**

Percy's eyes glazed over wistfully. After the Titan war... a bath seemed like Elysium.

"**Bath house," Hazel said. "We'll get you in there before dinner, hopefully. You haven't lived until you've had a Roman bath." Percy sighed with anticipation.**

Percy sighed in anticipation too.

The gods also sighed in anticipation, especially Poseidon.

_Well, _Athena thought ruefully. _Roman aspects suck, but one thing that the Romans were pretty good at were the baths..._

**As they approached the front gate, the barracks got bigger and nicer. Even the ghosts looked better—with fancier armor and shinier auras. Percy tried to decipher the banners and symbols hanging in front of the buildings.**

"**You guys are divided into different cabins?" he asked.**

"**Sort of." Hazel ducked as a kid riding a giant eagle swooped overhead. "We have five cohorts of about forty kids each. Each cohort is divided into barracks of ten—like roommates, kind of."**

**Percy had never been great at math, but he tried to multiply. "You're telling me there's two hundred kids at camp?"**

"**Roughly," **

"**And all of them are children of the gods? The gods have been busy."**

Aphrodite giggled.

**Hazel laughed. "Not all of them are children of major gods. There are hundreds of minor Roman gods. Plus, a lot of the campers are legacies—second or third generation. Maybe their parents were demigods. Or their grandparents."**

"What?" Annabeth gasped.

The demigods looked struck.

A new generation. Having children. Living to an old age.

It was a dream no one really dared to dream.

Leo fiddled with a metal chain. He swung it around, making some pretty cool whistling noises.

**Percy blinked. "Children of demigods?"**

"**Why? Does that surprise you?"**

**Percy wasn't sure. The last few weeks he'd been so worried about surviving day to day. The idea of living long enough to be an adult and have kids of his own—that seemed like an impossible dream.**

"It is an impossible dream," Annabeth glared at Hera.

"Why are you looking at me?" Hera demanded.

"Well..."

Fortuna quickly continued before a full on fight including a lot of cursing and a mutated peacock or cow came into the story.

"**These Legos—"**

"**Legacies," Hazel corrected.**

"**They have powers like a demigod?"**

"**Sometimes. Sometimes not. But they can be trained. All the best Roman generals and emperors—you know, they all claimed to be descended from gods. Most of the time, they were telling the truth. The camp augur we're going to meet, Octavian, he's a legacy, descendant of Apollo. He's got the gift of prophecy, supposedly."**

"He doesn't have the gift of prophecy," Apollo said angrily. "All he can do is to kill teddy bears,"

"Teddy bears?" Connor and Travis looked puzzled. "Like, does he set them on fire... or does he..."

"Go on, Fortuna," Apollo said quickly.

"**Supposedly?"**

**Hazel made a sour face. "You'll see."**

**That didn't make Percy feel so great, if this dude Octavian had Percy's fate in his hands.**

"**So the divisions," he asked, "the cohorts, whatever—you're divided according to who your godly parent is?"**

**Hazel stared at him. "What a horrible idea! **

The Greeks bristled. Clarisse's face turned tomato red. Her head seemed to grow bigger and bigger.

"Wanna prick her head with a pin?" Travis asked excitedly.

Connor plucked a pin out of nowhere. "Let's see. Will her head start spraying brain juice or explode all at once?"

"Brain juice,"

"I'm in for the exploding head."

"Boys!" Hera called.

Connor hid the pin before Hera could see it.

Leo almost felt sorry for them. They looked so disappointed when Clarisse's head began to deflate.

**No, the officers decide where to assign recruits. If we were divided according to god, the cohorts would be all uneven. I'd be alone."**

**Percy felt a twinge of sadness, like he'd been in that situation. "Why? What's your ancestry?"**

Hades tensed. He braced himself for a "Why did you break the Pact?" lecture.

**Before she could answer, someone behind them yelled, "Wait!"**

**A ghost ran toward them—an old man with a medicine-ball belly and toga so long he kept tripping on it. He caught up to them and gasped for air, his purple aura flickering around him.**

"**This is him?" the ghost panted. "A new recruit for the Fifth, perhaps?"**

"**Vitellius," Hazel said, "we're sort of in a hurry."**

Hades grimaced as Pluto made a flash appearance.

**The ghost scowled at Percy and walked around him, inspecting him like a used car. "I don't know," he grumbled. "We need only the best for the cohort. Does he have all his teeth? Can he fight? Does he clean stables?"**

"There are stables?" Connor asked, suddenly excited.

"When there's horses, there are..." Travis said.

"Horse poop!" the twins high-fived each other.

"**Yes, yes, and no," Percy said. "Who are you?"**

"**Percy, this is Vitellius." Hazel's expression said: Just humor him. "He's one of our Lares; takes an interest in new recruits."**

**On a nearby porch, other ghosts snickered as Vitellius paced back and forth, tripping over his toga and hiking up his sword belt.**

"**Yes," Vitellius said, "back in Caesar's day—that's Julius Caesar, mind you—the Fifth Cohort was something! Twelfth Legion Fulminata, pride of Rome! But these days? Disgraceful what we've come to. Look at Hazel here, using a spatha. Ridiculous weapon for a Roman legionnaire—that's for cavalry! And you, boy—you smell like a Greek sewer.**

The Greeks bristled again.

"Why do they keep on insulting us?" Lacy asked petulantly.

Nico nodded in agreement. He scootched out of the way as Clarisse's head began to inflate again.

Travis and Connor grew excited again, fingering their pins.

**Haven't you had a bath?"**

"**I've been a little busy fighting gorgons," Percy said.**

"**Vitellius," Hazel interrupted, "we've got to get Percy's augury before he can join. Why don't you check on Frank? He's in the armory doing inventory. You know how much he values your help."**

**The ghost's furry purple eyebrows shot up. "Mars Almighty! They let the probatio check the armor? We'll be ruined!"**

"How dare he!" Ares roared. "How dare he insult MY son using MY name?"

"Frank's your son?" Aphrodite asked, astonished.

"You haven't noticed?" Ares sounded even more astonished.

"Dude, Ares can actually have a sumo wrestler baby faced son?" Travis and Connor suddenly forgot about poking Clarisse's head.

Leo grimaced. Frank and Clarisse... their differences were almost astonishing.

**He stumbled off down the street, stopping every few feet to pick up his sword or rearrange his toga.**

"**O-h-h-kay," Percy said.**

"**Sorry," Hazel said. "He's eccentric, but he's one of the oldest Lares. Been around since the legion was founded."**

"**He called the legion…Fulminata?" Percy said.**

"'**Armed with Lightning,'" Hazel translated. "That's our motto. The Twelfth Legion was around for the entire Roman Empire. When Rome fell, a lot of legions just disappeared. We went underground, acting on secret orders from Jupiter himself: stay alive, recruit demigods and their children, keep Rome going. We've been doing that ever since, moving around to wherever Roman influence was strongest. The last few centuries, we've been in America."**

**As bizarre as that sounded, Percy had no trouble believing it. In fact, it sounded familiar, like something he'd always known.**

"**And you're in the Fifth Cohort," he guessed, "which maybe isn't the most popular?"**

**Hazel scowled. "Yeah. I joined up last September."**

"**So…just a few weeks before that guy Jason disappeared."**

**Percy knew he'd hit a sore spot. Hazel looked down. She was silent long enough to count every paving stone.**

"**Come on," she said at last. "I'll show you my favorite view."**

**They stopped outside the main gates. The fort was situated on the highest point in the valley, so they could see pretty much everything.**

**The road led down to the river and divided. One path led south across a bridge, up to the hill with all the temples. The other road led north into the city, a miniature version of Ancient Rome. Unlike the military camp, the city looked chaotic and colorful, with buildings crowded together at haphazard angles. Even from this far away, Percy could see people gathered in the plaza, shoppers milling around an open-air market, parents with kids playing in the parks.**

Percy sighed wistfully. Having a little girl or boy with Annabeth and living to a ripe old age seemed like Elysium.

"**You've got families here?" he asked.**

"**In the city, absolutely," Hazel said. **

The demigods perked up.

"**When you're accepted into the legion, you do ten years of service. After that, you can muster out whenever you want. Most demigods go into the mortal world. But for some—well, it's pretty dangerous out there. This valley is a sanctuary. You can go to college in the city, get married, have kids, retire when you get old.**

The demigods sighed with pleasure.

**It's the only safe place on earth for people like us. So yeah, a lot of veterans make their homes there, under the protection of the legion."**

**Adult demigods. Demigods who could live without fear, get married, raise a family. Percy couldn't quite wrap his mind around that. It seemed too good to be true.**

"It is too good to be true," Percy agreed.

"**But if this valley is attacked?"**

**Hazel pursed her lips. "We have defenses. The borders are magical. But our strength isn't what it used to be. Lately, the monster attacks have been increasing. What you said about the gorgons not dying…we've noticed that too, with other monsters."**

"**Do you know what's causing it?"**

**Hazel looked away. Percy could tell that she was holding something back—something she wasn't supposed to say.**

"**It's—it's complicated," she said. "My brother says Death isn't—"**

**She was interrupted by an elephant.**

**Someone behind them shouted, "Make way!"**

**Hazel dragged Percy out of the road as a demigod rode past on a full-grown pachyderm covered in black Kevlar armor. The word elephant was printed on the side of his armor, which seemed a little obvious to Percy.**

"The Romans have an elephant?" Thalia gawped. Even Nico managed a shocked expression.

"That's awesome!" a young Huntress piped up. "I wanna elephant!"

**The elephant thundered down the road and turned north, heading toward a big open field where some fortifications were under construction.**

**Percy spit dust out of his mouth. "What the—?"**

"**Elephant," Hazel explained.**

"**Yeah, I read the sign. Why do you have an elephant in a bulletproof vest?"**

The demigods murmured.

"**War games tonight," Hazel said. "That's Hannibal. If we didn't include him, he'd get upset."**

Artemis shuddered impulsively. She had seen quite a few upset elephants in her life, and they weren't too nice.

"**We can't have that."**

**Hazel laughed. It was hard to believe she'd looked so moody a moment ago. Percy wondered what she'd been about to say. She had a brother. Yet she had claimed she'd be alone if the camp sorted her by her godly parent.**

**Percy couldn't figure her out. She seemed nice and easy going, mature for somebody who couldn't have been more than thirteen. But she also seemed to be hiding a deep sadness, like she felt guilty about something.**

**Hazel pointed south across the river. Dark clouds were gathering over Temple Hill. Red flashes of lightning washed the monuments in blood-colored light.**

"**Octavian is busy," Hazel said. "We'd better get over there."**

**On the way, they passed some goat-legged guys hanging out on the side of the road.**

"**Hazel!" one of them cried.**

**He trotted over with a big grin on his face. He wore a faded Hawaiian shirt and nothing for pants except thick brown goat fur. His massive Afro jiggled. His eyes were hidden behind little round rainbow-tinted glasses. He held a cardboard sign that read: WILL WORK SING TALK go away for denarii.**

Grover stiffened.

"**Hi, Don," Hazel said. "Sorry, we don't have time—"**

"**Oh, that's cool! That's cool!" Don trotted along with them. "Hey, this guy's new!" He grinned at Percy. "Do you have three denarii for the bus? Because I left my wallet at home, and I've got to get to work, and—"**

"**Don," Hazel chided. "Fauns don't have wallets. Or jobs. Or homes.**

Grover gasped. His lower lip trembled and he began to shake. Juniper held his shoulders comfortingly.

Percy looked slightly nervous.

"Oi! Stop that!" Will Solace yelped. The chain had bashed against his head, leaving quite a bump.

"Sorry," Leo apologized as he quickly wrapped up the chain.

**And we don't have buses."**

"**Right," he said cheerfully, "but do you have denarii?"**

"**Your name is Don the Faun?" Percy asked.**

"**Yeah. So?"**

"**Nothing." Percy tried to keep a straight face. "Why don't fauns have jobs? Shouldn't they work for the camp?"**

**Don bleated. "Fauns! Work for the camp! Hilarious!"**

Grover's jaw dropped. "Satyrs... they... how... dare... they..."

"**Fauns are, um, free spirits," Hazel explained. "They hang out here because, well, it's a safe place to hang out and beg. We tolerate them, but—"**

"Tolerate them!" Grover bleated. "How dare they! Satyrs aren't meant to be tolerated! They're protectors of the wild, seekers..."

Fortuna cut him off.

"**Oh, Hazel is awesome," Don said. "She's so nice! All the other campers are like, 'Go away, Don.' But she's like, 'Please go away, Don.' I love her!"**

Aphrodite gasped.

Grover quieted down slightly. At least this Hazel girl is nice.

**The faun seemed harmless, but Percy still found him unsettling. He couldn't shake the feeling that fauns should be more than just homeless guys begging for denarii.**

"Thanks, man," Grover said shakily.

"No problem," Percy reassured him. "If I have a chance, the first thing I'll do is to make sure the fauns are just like the satyrs,"

**Don looked at the ground in front of them and gasped. "Score!"**

**He reached for something, but Hazel screamed, "Don, no!"**

**She pushed him out of the way and snatched up a small shiny object. **

Hades grimaced.

**Percy caught a glimpse of it before Hazel slipped it into her pocket. He could have sworn it was a diamond.**

"**Come on, Hazel," Don complained. "I could've bought a year's worth of doughnuts with that!"**

"**Don, please," Hazel said. "Go away."**

**She sounded shaken, like she'd just saved Don from a charging bulletproof elephant.**

"In a way, she did," Hades muttered, too quiet for anyone to hear.

**The faun sighed. "Aw, I can't stay mad at you. But I swear, it's like you're good luck. Every time you walk by—"**

"**Good-bye, Don," Hazel said quickly. "Let's go, Percy."**

**She started jogging. Percy had to sprint to catch up.**

"**What was that about?" Percy asked. "That diamond in the road—"**

"**Please," she said. "Don't ask."**

**They walked in uneasy silence the rest of the way to TempleHill. A crooked stone path led past a crazy assortment of tiny altars and massive domed vaults. Statues of gods seemed to follow Percy with their eyes.**

**Hazel pointed out the Temple of Bellona. "Goddess of war," she said. "That's Reyna's mom." Then they passed a massive red crypt decorated with human skulls on iron spikes.**

A wolfish grin crept up Ares's face. Seeing her father's grin, Clarisse perked up as well.

"**Please tell me we're not going in there," Percy said.**

**Hazel shook her head. "That's the Temple of Mars Ultor."**

"YES!" the Ares cabin cheered.

"**Mars ... Ares, the war god?"**

"**That's his Greek name," Hazel said. "But, yeah, same guy. Ultor means 'the Avenger.' He's the second-most important god of Rome."**

Ares whooped. He stood up and did a little dance, wriggling his bottom and grinning like a maniac. The gods and demigods gawped.

"What?" Ares demanded as he collapsed onto his throne, noticing the assembly's expression. "There's nothing wrong with having a little bit of fun!"

Fortuna cleared her throat and resumed.

**Percy wasn't thrilled to hear that. For some reason, just looking at the ugly red building made him feel angry.**

Leo glanced at Percy. Sure enough, he did look pretty angry.

**He pointed toward the summit. Clouds swirled over the largest temple, a round pavilion with a ring of white columns supporting a domed roof. "I'm guessing that's Zeus—uh, I mean, Jupiter's? That's where we're heading?"**

"**Yeah." Hazel sounded edgy. "Octavian reads auguries there—the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus."**

**Percy had to think about it, but the Latin words clicked into English. "Jupiter…the best and the greatest?"**

"HA!" Zeus yelled, jamming his face right into Poseidon's. "HA! Your son thinks I'm so great! Take THAT!"

Poseidon looked as if he was about to summon a freak hurricane.

"Sorry, pops," Percy stuttered nervously

"**Right."**

"**What's Neptune's title?" Percy asked. "The coolest and most awesome?"**

The stormy face disappeared immediately.

"HA!" Poseidon yelled into Zeus's face. "Take THAT! The coolest and most awesome god... That totally beats you! HA!"

"**Um, not quite." Hazel gestured to a small blue building the size of a toolshed. A cobweb-covered trident was nailed above the door.**

**Percy peeked inside. On a small altar sat a bowl with three dried-up, moldy apples.**

Zeus laughed openly at Poseidon's face. It looked like a dried up, moldy apple dipped in chili sauce, flushed with rage.

For some really weird reason, Percy shrank back.

Annabeth didn't help matters by sketching the temple, with the cobwebs and moldy apples and all.

**His heart sank. "Popular place."**

"You can say that again," Poseidon growled.

"**I'm sorry, Percy," Hazel said. "It's just…Romans were always scared of the sea. They only used ships if they had to. Even in modern times, having a child of Neptune around has always been a bad omen. The last time one joined the legion**

…**well, it was 1906, when Camp Jupiter was located across the bay in San Francisco. There was this huge earthquake—"**

"**You're telling me a child of Neptune caused that?"**

"**So they say." Hazel looked apologetic. "Anyway…**

**Romans fear Neptune, but they don't love him much." **

Fortuna glanced nervously at Neptune... Poseidon. He was shaking with rage, and cracks appeared on the floor, shooting geysers of salt water.

"Whoa!" Percy yelped as he managed to suppress the geysers, but most of the campers were already soaked to the skin. Well... apart from Percy and Poseidon, of course.

"Plegh!" Leo gagged as he spat out a mouthful of salty water, along with several small but angry shrimp.

Aphrodite squealed as her skirt got wet. She snapped her fingers, and her skirt dried. The gods followed suit. However, the demigods were still wet and very grumpy.

Travis and Connor scampered away, only to reappear with a massive bronze leaf blower.

"Who wants to get dry?" They hollered.

"Wait!" Hephaestus yelped. "That's a delicate machine!"

The Stoll brothers flicked a latch and soon, the Throne Room was infused with wind. Leo yelped as his clothes dried immediately. Soon, he found himself covered in grains of salt, but dry.

The campers muttered ungratefully as they shook the salt from their clothes. Hephaestus looked completely outraged. He wagged his finger, and the Stoll Brothers were tied to their seats with carefully woven bronze wires. No matter how hard they tried, they could not break free.

Katie looked so smug. Some gods, Demeter included looked pleased as well.

Leo took off his tool belt and began to shake the salt out.

**Percy stared at the cobwebs on the trident. Great, he thought. Even if he joined the camp, he would never be loved. His best hope was to be scary to his new campmates. Maybe if he did really well, they'd give him some moldy apples.**

**Still…standing at Neptune's altar, he felt something stirring inside him, like waves rippling through his veins.**

**He reached in his backpack and dug out the last bit of food from his trip—a stale bagel. It wasn't much, but he set it on the altar.**

"Aw son..." Poseidon sighed. He was touched... seriously and honestly. Even though his son could only provide him with a stale bagel, it was still a... wonderful offering?

"**Hey…uh, Dad." He felt pretty stupid talking to a bowl of fruit. "If you can hear me, help me out, okay? Give me my memory back. Tell me—tell me what to do."**

**His voice cracked. He hadn't meant to get emotional, but he was exhausted and scared, and he'd been lost for so long, he would've given anything for some guidance. He wanted to know something about his life for sure, without grabbing for missing memories.**

_I swear, _Poseidon thought _I swear that my son will receive all the guidance I can provide in that moment of his life._

**Hazel put her hand on his shoulder. "It'll be okay. You're here now. You're one of us."**

**He felt awkward, depending on an eighth-grade girl he barely knew for comfort, but he was glad she was there.**

**Above them, thunder rumbled. Red lightning lit up the hill.**

"**Octavian's almost done," Hazel said. "Let's go."**

**Compared to Neptune's tool shed, Jupiter's temple was definitely optimus and maximus.**

**The marble floor was etched with fancy mosaics and Latin inscriptions. Sixty feet above, the domed ceiling sparkled gold. The whole temple was open to the wind.**

**In the center stood a marble altar, where a kid in a toga was doing some sort of ritual in front of a massive golden statue of the big dude himself: Jupiter the sky god, dressed in a silk XXXL purple toga, holding a lightning bolt.**

"**It doesn't look like that," Percy muttered.**

"**What?" Hazel asked.**

"**The master bolt," Percy said.**

"**What are you talking about?"**

"**I—" Percy frowned. For a second, he'd thought he remembered something. Now it was gone. "Nothing, I guess."**

**The kid at the altar raised his hands. More red lightning flashed in the sky, shaking the temple. Then he put his hands down, and the rumbling stopped. The clouds turned from gray to white and broke apart.**

**A pretty impressive trick, considering the kid didn't look like much. He was tall and skinny, with straw-colored hair, oversized jeans, a baggy T-shirt, and a drooping toga. He looked like a scarecrow wearing a bed sheet.**

Even though they were tied in uncomfortable positions, the Stoll brothers still snickered.

_I must change the fashion in Camp Jupiter, _Aphrodite thought.

"**What's he doing?" Percy murmured.**

**The guy in the toga turned. He had a crooked smile and a slightly crazy look in his eyes, like he'd just been playing an intense video game. In one hand he held a knife. In the other hand was something like a dead animal. That didn't make him look any less crazy.**

Dionysus perked up, though his interest was hidden behind a wine magazine. Whenever the word "crazy" was mentioned, Dionysus would be there.

"**Percy," Hazel said, "this is Octavian."**

"**The graecus!" Octavian announced. "How interesting."**

"**Uh, hi," Percy said. "Are you killing small animals?"**

**Octavian looked at the fuzzy thing in his hand and laughed. "No, no. Once upon a time, yes. We used to read the will of the gods by examining animal guts—chickens, goats, that sort of thing. Nowadays, we use these."**

**He tossed the fuzzy thing to Percy. It was a disemboweled teddy bear. Then Percy noticed that there was a whole pile of mutilated stuffed animals at the foot of Jupiter's statue.**

"**Seriously?" Percy asked.**

**Octavian stepped off the dais. He was probably about eighteen, but so skinny and sickly pale, he could've passed for younger. At first he looked harmless, but as he got closer, Percy wasn't so sure. Octavian's eyes glittered with harsh curiosity, like he might gut Percy just as easily as a teddy bear if he thought he could learn something from it.**

**Octavian narrowed his eyes. "You seem nervous."**

"**You remind me of someone," Percy said. "I can't remember who."**

"Seaweed Brain!" Annabeth gasped, horrified. "You can't compare Luke to this crazy scarecrow!"

"I'm not comparing him to Luke!" Percy yelped. "Luke was way better than Octavian could ever be!"

Once the two lovers calmed down, Fortuna resumed the story.

"**Possibly my namesake, Octavian—Augustus Caesar. Everyone says I bear a remarkable resemblance."**

**Percy didn't think that was it, but he couldn't pin down the memory. "Why did you call me 'the Greek'?"**

"**I saw it in the auguries." Octavian waved his knife at the pile of stuffing on the altar. "The message said: The Greek has arrived. Or possibly: The goose has cried.**

The assembly snickered.

**I'm thinking the first interpretation is correct. You seek to join the legion?"**

**Hazel spoke for him. She told Octavian everything that had happened since they met at the tunnel—the gorgons, the fight at the river, the appearance of Juno, their conversation with Reyna.**

**When she mentioned Juno, Octavian looked surprised.**

"**Juno," he mused. "We call her Juno Moneta. Juno the Warner. She appears in times of crisis, to counsel Rome about great threats."**

"Yeah, right," Percy grumbled. "Should have warned us about the Titan War earlier,"

**He glanced at Percy, as if to say: like mysterious Greeks, for instance.**

The Greeks looked offended.

"**I hear the Feast of Fortuna is this week," Percy said. "The gorgons warned there'd be an invasion on that day. Did you see that in your stuffing?"**

Fortuna squealed in distress. An invasion on her special day! Oh no!

"**Sadly, no." Octavian sighed. "The will of the gods is hard to discern. And these days, my vision is even darker."**

"**Don't you have…I don't know," Percy said, "an oracle or something?"**

"**An oracle!" Octavian smiled. "What a cute idea. No, I'm afraid we're fresh out of oracles. Now, if we'd gone questing for the Sibylline books, like I recommended—"**

"**The Siba-what?" Percy asked.**

"**Books of prophecy," Hazel said, "which Octavian is obsessed with. Romans used to consult them when disasters happened. Most people believe they burned up when Rome fell."**

"**Some people believe that," Octavian corrected. "Unfortunately our present leadership won't authorize a quest to look for them—"**

"**Because Reyna isn't stupid," Hazel said.**

"—**so we have only a few remaining scraps from the books," Octavian continued. "A few mysterious predictions, like these."**

**He nodded to the inscriptions on the marble floor. Percy stared at the lines of words, not really expecting to understand them. He almost choked.**

"**That one." He pointed, translating as he read aloud:"Seven half-bloods shall answer the call. To storm or fire the world must fall—"**

"**Yes, yes." Octavian finished it without looking: "An oath to keep with a final breath, and foes bear arms to the Doors of Death."**

"**I—I know that one." Percy thought thunder was shaking the temple again. Then he realized his whole body was trembling. "That's important."**

"It is," Apollo agreed.

**Octavian arched an eyebrow. "Of course it's important. We call it the Prophecy of Seven, but it's several thousand years old. We don't know what it means. Every time someone tries to interpret it…Well, Hazel can tell you. Bad things happen."**

**Hazel glared at him. "Just read the augury for Percy. Can he join the legion or not?"**

**Percy could almost see Octavian's mind working, calculating whether or not Percy would be useful. He held out his hand for Percy's backpack. "That's a beautiful specimen. May I?" **

**Percy didn't understand what he meant, but Octavian snatched the Bargain Mart panda pillow that was sticking out of the top of his pack. It was just a silly stuffed toy, but Percy had carried it a long way. He was kind of fond of it. **

"Dude!" Travis called from his bonds. "Can you even believe that the almighty Percy Jackson got fond of a panda..."

Travis suddenly found a seaweed gag in his mouth. It was repulsive, strings of dark green muck spilling out of his mouth. Worst of all was the taste of dead fish.

"Mm Hm Hmmmmmph!" Travis protested.

"Thank goodness I don't have one!" Connor said, only to get a seaweed gag as well.

Poseidon looked triumphant. Katie and Demeter were grinning like maniacs. Hephaestus gave Poseidon a look, like "Good job!"

Seeing their faces, Leo almost felt sorry for twins.

**Octavian turned toward the altar and raised his knife.**

_Is he going to... _Artemis thought.

"**Hey!" Percy protested.**

"Yep, he did," Artemis muttered.

**Octavian slashed open the panda's belly and poured its stuffing over the altar. He tossed the panda carcass aside, muttered a few words over the fluff, and turned with a big smile on his face.**

"**Good news!" he said. "Percy may join the legion. We'll assign him a cohort at evening muster. Tell Reyna that I approve."**

**Hazel's shoulders relaxed. "Uh…great. Come on, Percy."**

"**Oh, and Hazel," Octavian said. "I'm happy to welcome Percy into the legion. But when the election for praetor comes up, I hope you'll remember—"**

"**Jason isn't dead," Hazel snapped. "You're the augur. You're supposed to be looking for him!"**

Thalia felt her face heating up. She was starting to dislike that Octavian guy. How dare he call her brother dead!

"**Oh, I am!" Octavian pointed at the pile of gutted stuffed animals. "I consult the gods every day! Alas, after eight months, I've found nothing. Of course, I'm still looking. But if Jason doesn't return by the Feast of Fortuna, we must act. We can't have a power vacuum any longer. I hope you'll support me for praetor. It would mean so much to me."**

**Hazel clenched her fists. "Me. Support. You?"**

**Octavian took off his toga, setting it and his knife on the altar. Percy noticed seven lines on Octavian's arm—seven years of camp, Percy guessed. Octavian's mark was a harp, the symbol of Apollo.**

"I am ashamed to have him as my son," Apollo announced as everyone glanced at him. "I have no idea why my Roman side decided to have such a squirming little brat as a son,"

"**After all," Octavian told Hazel, "I might be able to help you. It would be a shame if those awful rumors about you kept circulating…or, gods forbid, if they turned out to be true."**

**Percy slipped his hand into his pocket and grabbed his pen. This guy was blackmailing Hazel. That was obvious. One sign from Hazel, and Percy was ready to bust out Riptide and see how Octavian liked being at the other end of a blade.**

The Ares cabin and Ares cheered. They loved the phrase: At the end of a blade.

**Hazel took a deep breath. Her knuckles were white. "I'll think about it."**

"**Excellent," Octavian said. "By the way, your brother is here."**

Nico suddenly had a funny feeling in his stomach.

**Hazel stiffened. "My brother? Why?"**

**Octavian shrugged. "Why does your brother do anything? He's waiting for you at your father's shrine. Just…ah, don't invite him to stay too long. He has a disturbing effect on the others. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to keep searching for our poor lost friend, Jason. Nice to meet you, Percy."**

**Hazel stormed out of the pavilion, and Percy followed. He was sure he'd never been so glad to leave a temple in his life.**

**As Hazel marched down the hill, she cursed in Latin. Percy didn't understand all of it, but he got son of a gorgon, power-hungry snake, and a few choice suggestions about where Octavian could stick his knife.**

The Ares Cabin cheered again.

"Gotta love that girl," Ares said gleefully, earning a simply furious glare from Hades.

"**I hate that guy," she muttered in English. "If I had my way—"**

"**He won't really get elected praetor, will he?" Percy asked.**

"**I wish I could be certain. Octavian has a lot of friends, most of them bought. The rest of the campers are afraid of him."**

"**Afraid of that skinny little guy?"**

"**Don't underestimate him. Reyna's not so bad by herself, but if Octavian shares her power…" Hazel shuddered. **

The gods shuddered as well.

"**Let's go see my brother. He'll want to meet you."**

**Percy didn't argue. He wanted to meet this mysterious brother, maybe learn something about Hazel's background—who her dad was, what secret she was hiding. Percy couldn't believe she'd done anything to be guilty about. She seemed too nice. But Octavian had acted like he had some first-class dirt on her.**

**Hazel led Percy to a black crypt built into the side of the hill. Standing in front was a teenage boy in black jeans and an aviator jacket.**

Percy glanced at Nico. Nico shrugged.

"**Hey," Hazel called. "I've brought a friend."**

**The boy turned. Percy had another one of those weird flashes: like this was somebody he should know. The kid was almost as pale as Octavian, but with dark eyes and messy black hair. He didn't look anything like Hazel. He wore a silver skull ring, a chain for a belt, and a black T-shirt with skull designs. At his side hung a pure-black sword.**

More and more people began looking at Nico, including Hades.

Nico didn't usually sweat much, being the son of the Lord of the Dead and all, but suddenly, his hands felt clammy. His aviator jacket seemed to be smothering him.

**For a microsecond when he saw Percy, the boy seemed shocked—panicked even, like he'd been caught in a searchlight.**

"**This is Percy Jackson," Hazel said. "He's a good guy. Percy, this is my brother, the son of Pluto."**

Fortunately, the direction of the stares has turned.

"YOU HAD ANOTHER CHILD?" Zeus roared.

Hades cringed. "She was born around the same time as Nico!"

Zeus looked as if he wanted to yell even more, but was cut off by Fortuna.

**The boy regained his composure and held out his hand. "Pleased to meet you," he said. "I'm Nico di Angelo."**

Nico flinched.

"NICO DI ANGELO?" the demigods and gods roared. Nico shrank against the shadows and promptly disappeared.

Then, he reappeared.

"Sorry, shadow traveled by accident," Nico muttered. No one really heard him. They were too busy chattering about the next chapter, wondering how in the world Nico appeared in Camp Jupiter.

"I'll read next," Hades snapped his fingers and the book dissolved into smoke. It reappeared onto his lap.

"**V Hazel"**

"FINALLY NOT A PERCY CHAPTER!" Percy hollered in relief.

Hades shot Percy a stinky look and began.


	5. Chapter 5

**Hello, everyone!**

**Here's a new update!**

**Just to let you know, I'd seriously appreciate it if you reviewed. I might need a little help with killing a writer's block, and you can also suggest who you want to read SON next. **

**Also, I'm really sorry for the wait. Everything has been really chaotic these days. **

**So... enjoy!**

"**Hazel V" **Hades began.

He was worried for his daughter. He shook his head vaguely.

Nico tensed. He was feeling uneasy. This chapter will probably be about him. He glanced at Percy. Percy was looking at Annabeth. Nico's stomach coiled.

**Hazel felt like she'd just introduced two nuclear bombs. Now she was waiting to see which one exploded first.**

Percy leaned over to Nico. "Bet you I'll explode first,"

"Not likely," Nico grinned. The ground rumbled.

The Stoll brothers looked terrified, bound and gagged as cracks formed beneath their feet.

**Until that morning, her brother Nico had been the most powerful demigod she knew.**

"Thanks, Hazel," Nico said, stunned. He was honestly surprised. Well... pleasantly surprised.

**The others at Camp Jupiter saw him as a traveling oddball,**

Nico bristled, glaring at whoever who shot him pitiful looks. Sure, he wandered around, but it's not exactly because he was a social outcast! He was just... busy. Yes, right. Being the son of Hades, he's always busy.

**about as harmless as the fauns.**

Nico snarled. He was definitely NOT as harmless as a faun. A skeleton popped out of the soil, but Hades called it back down.

Grover looked unhappy about being called harmless as well.

**Hazel knew better. She hadn't grown up with Nico, hadn't even known him very long. But she knew Nico was more dangerous than Reyna, or Octavian, or maybe even Jason.**

"My son is _far _more powerful than yours!" Zeus yelled.

Hades glared at Zeus. Then, he shot a look at Nico. Nico grinned.

The ground erupted into cracks as skeletons poured out. Everyone scuttled aside. The Stoll brothers made muffled screaming sounds that sounded like a donkey with a sore throat as the skeletons began poking them with wicked looking spears.

"Eep!" Aphrodite squealed as a skeleton dog pounced on her pale pink skirt. She snapped her fingers, and the dog dissolved into a pile of pink fluff.

"All right, settle down," Zeus growled.

Nico smirked as he called down the skeletons. Hades shot Zeus a "Beat that!" look before continuing.

Leo took a hunk of bronze from his tool belt. He held it with his left hand, setting it alight while he used a fireproof chisel to carve into the melting bronze.

**Then she'd met Percy.**

**At first, when she saw him stumbling up the highway with the old lady in his arms, Hazel had thought he might be a god in disguise. Even though he was beat up, dirty, and stooped with exhaustion, he'd had an aura of power. He had the good looks of a Roman god,**

"What? No way Percy looks as good as me!" Aphrodite flinched as she turned into Venus.

"Mom?" Drew gasped.

The woman sitting on her mother's throne was gorgeous, with raven black hair coiled into a perfect knot and a shimmery pale purple sleeveless gown. Then, the image shifted and Aphrodite returned, her light brown hair slightly disheveled and her pale pink skirt slightly rumpled. A little wave settled those flaws.

"Please, continue," Aphrodite almost pleaded.

Hades shrugged and obliged.

**with sea-green eyes and wind blown black hair.**

**She'd ordered Frank not to fire on him. She thought the gods might be testing them. She'd heard myths like that: a kid with an old lady begs for shelter, and when the rude mortals refuse—boom, they get turned into banana slugs.**

The Stoll brothers chortled, sounding like cats with hairballs.

**Then Percy had controlled the river and destroyed the gorgons. He'd turned a pen into a bronze sword. He'd stirred up the whole camp with talk about the graecus.**

**A son of the sea god...**

**Long ago, Hazel had been told that a descendant of Neptune would save her. But could Percy really take away her curse? It seemed too much to hope for.**

**Percy and Nico shook hands. They studied each other warily, and Hazel fought the urge to run. If these two busted out the magic swords, things could get ugly.**

Nico nodded in agreement. Some campers glared at him, like "Would you?"

**Nico didn't appear scary. He was skinny and sloppy in his rumpled black clothes. His hair, as always, looked like he'd just rolled out of bed.**

Nico bristled.

**Hazel remembered when she'd met him. The first time she'd seen him draw that black sword of his, she'd almost laughed. The way he called it "Stygian iron," all serious-like—he'd looked ridiculous.**

Nico bristled even more. The ground rumbled.

"Not the skeletons again," Connor groaned, though it really sounded like "Nuh Noh Nelenuhns Nugaihn!"

**This scrawny white boy was no fighter. She certainly hadn't believed they were related.**

A skeletal hand burst through the marble floor.

**She had changed her mind about that quick enough.**

The skeletal hand retreated and the ground stilled. Nico looked somewhat more pleased.

**Percy scowled. "I—I know you."**

**Nico raised his eyebrows. "Do you?" He looked at Hazel for explanation.**

**Hazel hesitated. Something about her brother's reaction wasn't right. He was trying hard to act casual, but when he had first seen Percy, Hazel had noticed his momentary look of panic. Nico already knew Percy. She was sure of it. Why was he pretending otherwise?**

**Hazel forced herself to speak. "Um…Percy's lost his memory." She told her brother what had happened since Percy had arrived at the gates.**

"**So, Nico…" she continued carefully, "I thought…you know, you travel all over. Maybe you've met demigods like Percy before, or..."**

**Nico's expression turned as dark as Tartarus. Hazel didn't understand why, but she got the message: Drop it.**

"**This story about Gaea's army," Nico said. "You warned Reyna?"**

**Percy nodded. "Who is Gaea, anyway?"**

**Hazel's mouth went dry. Just hearing that name…It was all she could do to keep her knees from buckling. She remembered a woman's soft sleepy voice, a glowing cave, and feeling her lungs fill with black oil.**

Hades hissed softly. His daughter deserved Elysium, not the Fields of Asphodel. He felt like cursing himself for not doing more to prevent Marie from getting a more suitable warning.

"**She's the earth goddess." Nico glanced at the ground as if it might be listening. "The oldest goddess of all. She's in a deep sleep most of the time, but she hates the gods and their children."**

"**Mother Earth…is evil?" Percy asked.**

The gods nodded grimly.

"**Very," Nico said gravely. "She convinced her son, the Titan Kronos—um, I mean, Saturn—to kill his dad, Uranus, and take over the world. The Titans ruled for a long time. Then the Titans' children, the Olympian gods, overthrew them."**

"**That story seems familiar," Percy sounded surprised, like an old memory had partially surfaced. "But I don't think I ever heard the part about Gaea."**

**Nico shrugged. "She got mad when the gods took over. She took a new husband—Tartarus, the spirit of the abyss—and gave birth to a race of giants. They tried to destroy Mount Olympus, but the gods finally beat them. At least…the first time."**

"**The first time?" Percy repeated.**

**Nico glanced at Hazel. He probably wasn't meaning to make her feel guilty, but she couldn't help it. If Percy knew the truth about her, and the horrible things she'd done…**

"Dark secrets," Artemis sighed. "Why must it always be the maidens who have the dark, terrible secrets?"

"**Last summer," Nico continued, "Saturn tried to make a comeback. There was a second Titan war. The Romans at Camp Jupiter stormed his headquarters on Mount Othrys, across the bay, and destroyed his throne. Saturn disappeared—" He hesitated, watching Percy's face. Hazel got the feeling her brother was nervous that more of Percy's memory might come back.**

"**Um, anyway," Nico continued, "Saturn probably faded back to the abyss. We all thought the war was over. Now it looks like the Titans' defeat stirred up Gaea. She's starting to wake. I've heard reports of giants being reborn. If they mean to challenge the gods again, they'll probably start by destroying the demigods.…"**

"**You've told Reyna this?" Percy asked.**

"**Of course." Nico's jaw tensed. "The Romans don't trust me. That's why I was hoping she'd listen to you. Children of Pluto…well, no offense, but they think we're even worse than children of Neptune. We're bad luck."**

A couple campers looked as though they might actually agree. Nico bristled.

_He's probably a champion bristler, _Leo thought. He didn't dare say that aloud, of course.

"**They let Hazel stay here," Percy noted.**

"**That's different," Nico said.**

"**Why?"**

"**Percy," Hazel cut in, "look, the giants aren't the worst problem. Even ... even Gaea isn't the worst problem. The thing you noticed about the gorgons, how they wouldn't die, that's our biggest worry." She looked at Nico. She was getting dangerously close to her own secret now, but for some reason Hazel trusted Percy. Maybe because he was also an outsider, maybe because he'd saved Frank at the river. He deserved to know what they were facing.**

"**Nico and I," she said carefully, "we think that what's happening is…Death isn't—"**

**Before she could finish, a shout came from down the hill.**

**Frank jogged toward them, wearing his jeans, purple camp shirt, and denim jacket. His hands were covered with grease from cleaning weapons.**

**As it did every time she saw Frank,**

Aphrodite felt her love senses tingle. She leaned forward, not wanting to miss a syllable.

**Hazel's heart performed a little skip-beat tap-dance—which really irritated her. Sure, he was a good friend—one of the only people at camp who didn't treat her as if she had a contagious disease. But she didn't like him in that way.**

Aphrodite tensed.

**He was three years older than she was, and he wasn't exactly Prince Charming, with that strange combination of baby face and bulky wrestler's body. He looked like a cuddly koala bear with muscles. The fact that everyone always tried to pair them up—the two biggest losers at camp! You guys are perfect for each other—just made Hazel more determined not to like him.**

"Oh, Hazel..." Aphrodite murmured sadly. "How could you?"

**But her heart wasn't with the program. It went nuts whenever Frank was around. She hadn't felt like that since ... well, since Sammy.**

Aphrodite stiffened. Was it a love triangle?

**Stop it, she thought. You're here for one reason—and it isn't to get a new boyfriend.**

Aphrodite looked completely heartbroken.

**Besides, Frank didn't know her secret. If he knew, he wouldn't be so nice to her.**

Aphrodite sighed.

**He reached the shrine. "Hey, Nico…"**

Nico stiffened at the sound of his name.

Feeling sympathetic for the Stoll brothers, Leo padded over cautiously and used a pair of tweezers to remove their gags.

The twins spat out the last strands of seaweed goop. The assembly was too busy listening to the story to notice them.

"Thanks, man," Travis whispered hoarsely. His breath smelled like rotten fish. Connor sighed in relief when his gag was removed.

"Your breath stinks," Leo said.

"**Frank." Nico smiled. He seemed to find Frank amusing, maybe because Frank was the only one at camp who wasn't uneasy around the children of Pluto.**

"**Reyna sent me to get Percy," Frank said. "Did Octavian accept you?"**

"**Yeah," Percy said. "He slaughtered my panda."**

Artemis flinched. She was definitely against the slaughtering of pandas.

"**He…Oh. The augury? Yeah, teddy bears must have nightmares about that guy.**

The Stoll brothers laughed openly. Poseidon, seeing that the gags had been removed, quickly replaced them. Instead of seaweed, they were actually real rotten fish.

The Stoll brothers promptly threw up.

Leo scooted away from them while someone called the cleaning harpies over.

**But you're in! We need to get you cleaned up before evening muster."**

**Hazel realized the sun was getting low over the hills. How had the day gone so fast? "You're right," she said. "We'd better—"**

"**Frank," Nico interrupted, "why don't you take Percy down? Hazel and I will be along soon."**

**Uh-oh, Hazel thought. She tried not to look anxious.**

"**That's—that's a good idea," she managed. "Go ahead, guys. We'll catch up."**

**Percy looked at Nico one more time, as though he was still trying to place a memory. "I'd like to talk with you some more. I can't shake the feeling—"**

"**Sure," Nico agreed. "Later. I'll be staying overnight."**

"**You will?" Hazel blurted. The campers were going to love that—the son of Neptune and the son of Pluto arriving on the same day. Now all they needed was some black cats and broken mirrors.**

Hades snorted. Black cats and broken mirrors were all trash talk, nothing superstitious.

"**Go on, Percy," Nico said. "Settle in." He turned to Hazel, and she got the sense that the worst part of her day was yet to come. "My sister and I need to talk."**

"**You know him, don't you," Hazel said.**

**They sat on the roof of Pluto's shrine, which was covered with bones and diamonds. As far as Hazel knew, the bones had always been there. The diamonds were her fault. If she sat anywhere too long, or just got anxious, they started popping up all around her like mushrooms after a rain. Several million dollars' worth of stones glittered on the roof, but fortunately the other campers wouldn't touch them. They knew better than to steal from temples—especially Pluto's—and the fauns never came up here.**

Grover made a sound like a screaming mountain goat. Percy realized with relief it was just his way of expressing his relief that his faun relatives were safe from curses.

Leo watched the cleaning harpies warily as they mopped up the sick. When they raised air fresheners, Demeter frowned. She snapped her fingers and the tiny droplets of liquid turned into flower petals. Within moments, the room smelled like spring, when the flowers were just blooming.

Leo sighed as he tried to catch tiny daisy and primrose petals.

**Hazel shuddered, remembering her close call with Don that afternoon. If she hadn't moved quickly and snatched that diamond off the road…She didn't want to think about it. She didn't need another death on her conscience.**

**Nico swung his feet like a little kid. His Stygian iron sword lay by his side, next to Hazel's spatha. He gazed across the valley, where construction crews were working in the Field of Mars, building fortifications for tonight's games.**

"**Percy Jackson." **

Percy looked grim when his name was mentioned.

**He said the name like an incantation. "Hazel, I have to be careful what I say. Important things are at work here. Some secrets need to stay secret. You of all people—you should understand that."**

**Hazel's cheeks felt hot. "But he's not like…like me?"**

"**No," Nico said. "I'm sorry I can't tell you more. I can't interfere. Percy has to find his own way at this camp."**

"**Is he dangerous?" she asked.**

**Nico managed a dry smile. "Very. **

Percy looked completely smug, shooting Nico a "Thanks, man," look. Nico looked completely overwhelmed with pleasure.

**To his enemies. But he's not a threat to Camp Jupiter. You can trust him."**

"Yes," Percy agreed. "You can trust me,"

"Seaweed Brain!" Annabeth snipped as she jabbed him in the ribs.

"**Like I trust you," Hazel said bitterly.**

Nico frowned, wondering what his sister meant with that tone.

**Nico twisted his skull ring. Around him, bones began to quiver as if they were trying to form a new skeleton. Whenever he got moody, Nico had that effect on the dead, kind of like Hazel's curse. Between them, they represented Pluto's two spheres of control: death and riches. Sometimes Hazel thought Nico had gotten the better end of the deal.**

Hades looked sad. In a way, Nico did have the better end of the deal.

"Bored?" Hephaestus looked at Leo kindly. He handed Leo a gadget that looked like a cross between a computer and an octopus.

"What is it?" Leo asked, fascinated as his fingers swarmed over the Celestial Bronze surface.

"You'll figure it out," Hephaestus chuckled as he fiddled with another trinket.

"**Look, I know this is hard," Nico said. "But you have a second chance. You can make things right."**

"**Nothing about this is right," Hazel said. "If they find out the truth about me—"**

"**They won't," Nico promised. "They'll call a quest soon. They have to. You'll make me proud. Trust me, Bi—"**

Nico flinched as he remembered Bianca's death.

"You all right?" Percy asked.

Nico nodded.

**He caught himself, but Hazel knew what he'd almost called her: Bianca. Nico's real sister—the one he'd grown up with. Nico might care about Hazel, but she'd never be Bianca. Hazel was the simply the next best thing Nico could manage—a consolation prize from the Underworld.**

_I wouldn't think like that, _Nico thought.

"**I'm sorry," he said.**

**Hazel's mouth tasted like metal, as if gold nuggets were popping up under her tongue. "Then it's true about Death? Is Alcyoneus to blame?"**

"**I think so," Nico said. "It's getting bad in the Underworld. Dad's going crazy trying to keep things under control. From what Percy said about the gorgons, things are getting worse up here, too. But look, that's why you're here. All that stuff in your past—you can make something good come out of belong at Camp Jupiter."**

Hades began to frown. How could the Underworld be that chaotic?

**That sounded so ridiculous, Hazel almost laughed. She didn't belong in this place. She didn't even belong in this century.**

**She should have known better than to focus on the past, but she remembered the day when her old life had been shattered. The blackout hit her so suddenly, she didn't even have time to say, Uh-oh. She shifted back in time. Not a dream or a vision. The memory washed over her with such perfect clarity, she felt she was actually there.**

**Her most recent birthday. She'd just turned thirteen. But not last December—December 17, 1941, the last day she had lived in New Orleans.**

"Done," Hades said. He had a surprisingly bad feeling about this book. He didn't want to read about his daughter's thoughts and he certainly, definitely did not want to want to review Marie's death.

Leo glanced at the Lord of the Dead. Hm... he looked moody...

Leo grinned. He's got another person on the **Let's Destroy the Books! Crew. **

"Who's going to read next?" Leo asked. Zeus didn't even blink an eye when Leo asked if he could reread the Lost Hero. In reality, he had snagged the Mark of Athena.

His heart sank as he saw the Leo chapters.

_At the next break, I'll call Hades. We can DEFINITELY destroy those books! No more prying into Leo's brain!_

Leo thought as he stifled a lunatic giggle.

"I'll read," Katie volunteered. She picked up the book.

"**VI Hazel"**

_Just grand, _Hades thought. He was considering blasting the books to dust.

In the end, he just buried his face in his hands. This chapter would be about Marie...


	6. Chapter 6

**I am so, so, so, so, so sorry for the late update! I've been buried in homework, and the Literature project is going to turn my hair grey. **

**Oh well, here's the next chapter! Enjoy!**

**Thanks to A Stripped Tigger for giving me such awesome ideas!**

**The words in bold belong to Rick Riordan. **

"**Hazel IV..." **Katie began.

Leo glanced at the machine his father gave him. He hesitantly flicked the first latch. A plume of fire burst out and nearly scorched his eyebrows off. He punched another button, and a mechanical arm wielding a toothbrush came out and started to brush Leo's teeth.

**Hazel was walking home alone from the riding stables. Despite the cold evening, she was buzzing with warmth. Sammy had just kissed her on the cheek.**

"Ugh!" Leo exclaimed before he could stop himself. _Great,_he thought sarcastically. _Exactly what I wanted to hear. My Bisabuelo kissing hazel! I mean, I know they're dating, but... ugh!_

Leo scrubbed his eyes furiously with his fists. He needed to get that mental image out of his brain. He was never going to look at Hazel the same way ever again!

**The day had been full of ups and downs. Kids at school had teased her about her mother, calling her a witch**

Athena grimaced, glad Hecate wasn't there.

**and a lot of other names. That had been going on for a long time, of course, but it was getting worse. Rumors were spreading about Hazel's curse. The school was called St. Agnes Academy for Colored Children and Indians,**

Apollo burst out laughing. Once he realized no one was laughing with him, his smile dropped faster than a hundred kilo elephant dropping into a lake.

"You're not joking, aren't you?" Apollo asked.

**a name that hadn't changed in a hundred years. Just like its name, the place masked a whole lot of cruelty under a thin veneer of kindness.**

**Hazel didn't understand how other black kids could be so mean. They should've known better, since they themselves had to put up with name-calling all the time. But they yelled at her and stole her lunch, always asking for those famous jewels: "Where's those cursed diamonds, girl? Gimme some or I'll hurt you!"**

Leo looked from his machine and glanced uneasily at Hades. Hades' dark face was getting even darker, as if ready to pulverize someone, anyone.

Leo scootched away, just in case if Hades was ready to shoot some laser bolts.

**They pushed her away at the water fountain, and threw rocks at her if she tried to approach them on the playground.**

"Oh, snap," Hermes sighed as gemstones started popping from the ground.

**Despite how horrible they were, Hazel never gave them diamonds or gold. She didn't hate anyone that much. Besides, she had one friend—Sammy—and that was enough.**

Aphrodite looked interested.

**Sammy liked to joke that he was the perfect St. Agnes student. He was Mexican American, so he considered himself colored and Indian. "They should give me a double scholarship," he said.**

Athena snorted. Annabeth did too.

**He wasn't big or strong, but he had a crazy**

Dionysus perked up behind the wine magazine.

**smile and he made Hazel laugh.**

**That afternoon he'd taken her to the stables where he worked as a groom. It was a "whites only" riding club, of course, but it was closed on weekdays, and with the war on, there was talk that the club might have to shut down completely until the Japanese were whipped and the soldiers came back home. Sammy could usually sneak Hazel in to help take care of the horses. Once in a while they'd go riding.**

**Hazel loved horses. They seemed to be the only living things that weren't scared of her. People hated her. Cats hissed. Dogs growled. Even the stupid hamster in Miss Finley's classroom squeaked in terror when she gave it a carrot. But horses didn't mind. When she was in the saddle, she could ride so fast that there was no chance of gemstones cropping up in her wake. She almost felt free of her curse.**

**That afternoon, she'd taken out a tan roan stallion with a gorgeous black mane. She galloped into the fields so swiftly, she left Sammy behind. By the time he caught up, he and his horse were both winded.**

"**What are you running from?" He laughed. "I'm not that ugly, am I?"**

Aphrodite smiled with them. Sammy seemed like the perfect soul mate.

Seeing Aphrodite smile that dreamy smile of hers, Leo shuddered. _Frank and Hazel are definitely better than Sammy and Hazel, _Leo thought inwardly.

**It was too cold for a picnic, but they had one anyway, sitting under a magnolia tree with the horses tethered to a split-rail fence. Sammy had brought her a cupcake with a birthday candle, which had gotten smashed on the ride but was still the sweetest thing Hazel had ever seen. They broke it in half and shared it.**

"That was so _sweeeet!_" Aphrodite cooed.

**Sammy talked about the war. He wished he were old enough to go. He asked Hazel if she would write him letters if he were a soldier going overseas.**

"'**Course, dummy," she said.**

**He grinned. Then, as if moved by a sudden impulse, he lurched forward and kissed her on the cheek. "Happy birthday, Hazel."**

Cabin Ten giggled and pushed each other around. Leo gagged. Annabeth and percy kissed. Nico scowled.

**It wasn't much. Just one kiss, and not even on the lips. But Hazel felt like she was floating. She hardly remembered the ride back to the stables, or telling Sammy good-bye. He said, "See you tomorrow," like he always did. But she would never see him again.**

**By the time she got back to the French Quarter, it was getting dark. As she approached home, her warm feeling faded, replaced by dread.**

**Hazel and her mother—Queen Marie, she liked to be called—lived in an old apartment above a jazz club. Despite the beginning of the war, there was a festive mood in the air. New recruits would roam the streets, laughing and talking about fighting the Japanese. They'd get tattoos in the parlors or propose to their sweethearts right on the sidewalk.**

Aphrodite made a mental note to visit New Orleans immediately.

**Some would go upstairs to Hazel's mother to have their fortunes read or to buy charms from Marie Levesque, the famous grisgris queen.**

Hades just looked sad.

Nico had to fight down the impulse to run over and give him a hug. That would be ridiculous.

"**Did you hear?" one would say. "Two bits for this good-luck charm. I took it to a guy I know, and he says it's a real silver nugget. Worth twenty dollars! That voodoo woman is crazy!"**

Hermes mouth dropped. The Stoll brothers would have rubbed their hands like a mad scientist if they weren't bound.

**For a while, that kind of talk brought Queen Marie a lot of business. Hazel's curse had started out slowly. At first it seemed like a blessing. The precious stones and gold only appeared once in a while, never in huge quantities. QueenMarie paid her bills. They ate steak for dinner once a week. Hazel even got a new dress. But then stories started spreading. The locals began to realize how many horrible things happened to people who bought those good-luck charms or got paid with Queen Marie's treasure. Charlie Gasceaux lost his arm in a harvester while wearing a gold bracelet. Mr. Henry at the general store dropped dead from a heart attack after Queen Marie settled her tab with a ruby.**

Apollo grimaced.

**Folks started whispering about Hazel—how she could find cursed jewels just by walking down the street. These days only out-of-towners came to visit her mother, and not so many of them, either. Hazel's mom had become short-tempered. She gave Hazel resentful looks.**

Hera looked outraged.

Leo fiddled with the machine.

**Hazel climbed the stairs as quietly as she could, in case her mother had a customer. In the club downstairs, the band was tuning their instruments. The bakery next door had started making beignets for tomorrow morning, filling the stairwell with the smell of melting butter.**

**When she got to the top, Hazel thought she heard two voices inside the apartment. But when she peeked into the parlor, her mother was sitting alone at the séance table, her eyes closed, as if in a trance.**

**Hazel had seen her that way many times, pretending to talk to spirits for her clients—but not ever when she was by herself. Queen Marie had always told Hazel her gris-gris was "bunk and hokum." She didn't really believe in charms or fortune telling or ghosts. She was just a performer, like a singer or an actress, doing a show for money.**

**But Hazel knew her mother did believe in some magic. Hazel's curse wasn't hokum. Queen Marie just didn't want to think it was her fault—that somehow she had made Hazel the way she was.**

"**It was your blasted father,"**

Hades flinched.

**Queen Marie would grumble in her darker moods. "Coming here in his fancy silver-and black suit. The one time I actually summon a spirit, and what do I get? Fulfills my wish and ruins my life. I should've been a real queen. It's his fault you turned out this way."**

"How dare she?" Hera roared. "It wasn't even her fault!"

Hades just flinched.

**She would never explain what she meant, and Hazel had learned not to ask about her father. It just made her mother angrier.**

**As Hazel watched, Queen Marie muttered something to herself. Her face was calm and relaxed. Hazel was struck by how beautiful she looked, without her scowl and the creases in her brow. She had a lush mane of gold-brown hair like Hazel's, and the same dark complexion, brown as a roasted coffee bean. She wasn't wearing the fancy saffron robes or gold bangles she wore to impress clients—just a simple white dress. Still, she had a regal air, sitting straight and dignified in her gilded chair as if she really were a queen.**

"**You'll be safe there," she murmured. "Far from the gods."**

**Hazel stifled a scream. The voice coming from her mother's mouth wasn't hers. It sounded like an older woman's. The tone was soft and soothing, but also commanding—like a hypnotist giving orders.**

"Gaea," Athena hissed.

Leo was yelped out in pain as one of the machine's spindly little arms poked him in the eye.

**Queen Marie tensed. She grimaced in her trance, then spoke in her normal voice: "It's too far. Too cold. Too dangerous. He told me not to."**

**The other voice responded: "What has he ever done for you? He gave you a poisoned child! **

"How dare _you_!" Hera hissed at Hades.

Hades grimaced and bowed his head.

Nico was worried. What was wrong?

**But we can use her gift for good. We can strike back at the gods. You will be under my protection in the north, far from the gods' domain. I'll make my son your protector. You'll live like a queen at last."**

**Queen Marie winced. "But what about Hazel…"**

**Then her face contorted in a sneer. Both voices spoke in unison, as if they'd found something to agree on: "A poisoned child."**

The assembly looked outrageous.

Leo was glad Hazel wasn't here.

**Hazel fled down the stairs, her pulse racing.**

**At the bottom, she ran into a man in a dark suit. He gripped her shoulders with strong, cold fingers.**

"**Easy, child," the man said.**

**Hazel noticed the silver skull ring on his finger, then the strange fabric of his suit. In the shadows, the solid black wool seemed to shift and boil, forming images of faces in agony, as if lost souls were trying to escape from the folds of his clothes.**

**His tie was black with platinum stripes. His shirt was tombstone gray. His face—Hazel's heart nearly leaped out of her throat. His skin was so white it looked almost blue, like cold milk. He had a flap of greasy black hair. His smile was kind enough, but his eyes were fiery and angry, full of mad power. Hazel had seen that look in the newsreels at the movie theater. This man looked like that awful Adolf Hitler.**

Despite everything, Hades spluttered.

"Adolf Hitler!" he gasped.

**He had no mustache, but otherwise he could've been Hitler's twin—or his father.**

"Hm... Adolf Hitler..." Zeus murmured, grinning slightly.

"Adolf's twin..." Poseidon looked even more gleeful.

Hades shot them both a stinky look before gesturing for Katie to go on.

**Hazel tried to pull away. Even when the man let go, she couldn't seem to move. His eyes froze her in place.**

"**Hazel Levesque," he said in a melancholy voice. "You've grown."**

**Hazel started to tremble. At the base of the stairs, the cement stoop cracked under the man's feet. A glittering stone popped up from the concrete like the earth had spit out a watermelon seed. The man looked at it, unsurprised. He bent down.**

"**Don't!" Hazel cried. "It's cursed!"**

**He picked up the stone—a perfectly formed emerald. "Yes, it is. But not to me. So beautiful…worth more than this building, I imagine." He slipped the emerald in his pocket. "I'm sorry for your fate, child. I imagine you hate me."**

**Hazel didn't understand. The man sounded sad, as if he were personally responsible for her life. Then the truth hither: a spirit in silver and black, who'd fulfilled her mother's wishes and ruined her life.**

**Her eyes widened. "You? You're my…"**

**He cupped his hand under her chin. "I am Pluto. Life is never easy for my children,**

"Agreed," Nico agreed.

**but you have a special burden. Now that you're thirteen, we must make provisions—"**

**She pushed his hand away.**

"**You did this to me?" she demanded. "You cursed me and my mother? You left us alone?"**

**Her eyes stung with tears. This rich white man in a fine suit was her father? Now that she was thirteen, he showed up for the first time and said he was sorry?**

The demigods murmured. They could relate to that. The gods looked uneasy. For once, Zeus felt relieved that Percy made them swear on the River Styx to never ignore their children.

"**You're evil!" she shouted. "You ruined our lives!"**

Hades flinched.

**Pluto's eyes narrowed. "What has your mother told you, Hazel? Has she never explained her wish? Or told you why you were born under a curse?"**

**Hazel was too angry to speak, but Pluto seemed to read the answers in her face.**

"**No…" He sighed. "I suppose she wouldn't. Much easier to blame me."**

"**What do you mean?"**

**Pluto sighed. "Poor child. You were born too soon. I cannot see your future clearly, but someday you will find your place. A descendant of Neptune will wash away your curse and give you peace.**

"Me," Percy realized.

**I fear, though, that is not for many years.…"**

**Hazel didn't follow any of that. Before she could respond, Pluto held out his hand. A sketchpad and a box of colored pencils appeared in his palm.**

"**I understand you enjoy art and horseback riding," he said. "These are for your art. As for the horse…" His eyes gleamed. "That, you'll have to manage yourself. Now I must speak with your mother. Happy birthday, Hazel."**

**He turned and headed up the stairs—just like that, as if he'd checked Hazel off his "to do" list and had already forgotten her.**

The demigods were starting to seriously murmur. The gods looked seriously uneasy.

**Happy birthday. Go draw a picture. See you in another thirteen years.**

**She was so stunned, so angry, so upside-down confused that she just stood paralyzed at the base of the steps. She wanted to throw down the colored pencils and stomp on them. She wanted to charge after Pluto and kick him.**

"I'll pay a hundred drachmas to see that," Connor said.

"Two hundred drachmas," Travis replied.

"Three hundred,"

"Four hundred,"

Leo tried to shut out their bickering.

**She wanted to run away, find Sammy, steal a horse, leave town and never come back. But she didn't do any of those things.**

**Above her, the apartment door opened, and Pluto stepped inside.**

**Hazel was still shivering from his cold touch, but she crept up the stairs to see what he would do. What would he say to Queen Marie? Who would speak back—Hazel's mother, or that awful voice?**

**When she reached the doorway, Hazel heard arguing. She peeked in. Her mother seemed back to normal—screaming and angry, throwing things around the parlor while Pluto tried to reason with her.**

"**Marie, it's insanity," he said. "You'll be far beyond my power to protect you."**

"**Protect me?" Queen Marie yelled. "When have you ever protected me?"**

**Pluto's dark suit shimmered, as if the souls trapped in the fabric were getting agitated.**

_They probably were, _Hades thought.

"**You have no idea," he said. "I've kept you alive, you and the child. My enemies are everywhere among gods and men. Now with the war on, it will only get worse. You must stay where I can—"**

"**The police think I'm a murderer!" Queen Marie shouted. "My clients want to hang me as a witch! And Hazel—her curse is getting worse. Your protection is killing us."**

**Pluto spread his hands in a pleading gesture. "Marie, please—"**

"**No!" Queen Marie turned to the closet, pulled out a leather valise, and threw it on the table. "We're leaving," she announced. "You can keep your protection. We're going north."**

"**Marie, it's a trap," Pluto warned. "Whoever's whispering in your ear, whoever's turning you against me—"**

"**You turned me against you!" She picked up a porcelain vase and threw it at him. It shattered on the floor, and precious stones spilled everywhere—emeralds, rubies, diamonds. Hazel's entire collection.**

"**You won't survive," Pluto said. "If you go north, you'll both die. I can foresee that clearly."**

"**Get out!" she said.**

**Hazel wished Pluto would stay and argue. Whatever her mother was talking about, Hazel didn't like it. But her father slashed his hand across the air and dissolved into shadows…like he really was a spirit.**

**Queen Marie closed her eyes. She took a deep breath. Hazel was afraid the strange voice might possess her again. But when she spoke, she was her regular self.**

"**Hazel," she snapped, "come out from behind that door."**

Hera, Hestia and Hades flinched. They really didn't want to know what would happen next.

**Trembling, Hazel obeyed. She clutched the sketchpad and colored pencils to her chest.**

**Her mother studied her like she was a bitter disappointment. A poisoned child, the voices had said.**

"So much for a happy family," Hestia sighed sadly, prodding the coals in her hearth.

Hera nodded in agreement.

"**Pack a bag," she ordered. "We're moving."**

"**Wh-where?" Hazel asked.**

"**Alaska," Queen Marie answered.**

"Oh my," Athena said in a hushed whisper. "You can't help her there,"

"**You're going to make yourself useful. We're going to start a new life."**

**The way her mother said that, it sounded as if they were going to create a "new life" for someone else—or something else.**

"**What did Pluto mean?" Hazel asked. "Is he really my father? He said you made a wish—"**

"**Go to your room!" her mother shouted. "Pack!"**

Hades flinched. He was flinching a lot lately.

**Hazel fled, and suddenly she was ripped out of the past.**

**Nico was shaking her shoulders. "You did it again."**

**Hazel blinked. They were still sitting on the roof of Pluto's shrine. The sun was lower in the sky. More diamonds had surfaced around her, and her eyes stung from crying.**

"**S-sorry," she murmured.**

"**Don't be," Nico said. "Where were you?"**

"**My mother's apartment. The day we moved."**

**Nico nodded. He understood her history better than most people could. He was also a kid from the 1940s. He'd been born only a few years after Hazel, and had been locked away in a magic hotel for decades. But Hazel's past was much worse than Nico's. She'd caused so much damage and misery.…**

"**You have to work on controlling those memories," Nico warned. "If a flashback like that happens when you're in combat—"**

Ares leaned forward when he heard the word "Combat."

"**I know," she said. "I'm trying."**

**Nico squeezed her hand. "It's okay. I think it's a side effect from…you know, your time in the Underworld. Hopefully it'll get easier."**

**Hazel wasn't so sure. After eight months, the blackouts seemed to be getting worse, as if her soul were attempting to live in two different time periods at once. **

Athena frowned.

**No one had ever come back from the dead before—at least, not the way she had. Nico was trying to reassure her, but neither of them knew what would happen.**

"**I can't go north again," Hazel said. "Nico, if I have to go back to where it happened—"**

"**You'll be fine," he promised. "You'll have friends this time. Percy Jackson—he's got a role to play in this. You can sense that, can't you? He's a good person to have at your side."**

**Hazel remembered what Pluto told her long ago: A descendant of Neptune will wash away your curse and give you peace.**

"How am I supposed to do that?" Percy asked.

Annabeth poked him playfully. "We'll see, Seaweed Brain!"

Nico scowled.

**Was Percy the one? Maybe, but Hazel sensed it wouldn't be so easy. She wasn't sure even Percy could survive what was waiting in the north.**

"**Where did he come from?" she asked. "Why do the ghosts call him the Greek?"**

**Before Nico could respond, horns blew across the river. The legionnaires were gathering for evening muster.**

"**We'd better get down there," Nico said. "I have a feeling tonight's war games are going to be interesting."**

"I'll bet they are!" Ares yelled gleefully.

"I'll bet they are," Hades muttered darkly.

"Who's gonna read next?" Katie asked, waving the book around.

"I will," Surprisingly, Drew stood up and sashayed over. She picked up the book.

Leo didn't know what to say or hope for.

"**VII Hazel" **Drew began.

Everyone quieted down to listen.


	7. Chapter 7

**OK, everyone. **

**I'm going to change the updating scheme somewhat. I'll update during the weekends, so you'll receive two or three chapters a week, sometimes four if I have time. **

**Hope that's OK with you guys. Thanks!**

**The words in bold belong to Rick Riordan (RR). **

"**Hazel VII,"** Drew began in a snobby voice. She paused to study her nails.

Or that's what she looked like. In reality, Drew was flipping ahead of the book. Ever since someone had read the part when that brat Piper swiped away her consoler-ship, Drew needed to get it back.

Her fingers flew over the pages. Her heart clenched with both relief and dismay. Thank goodness they didn't mention anything about her in the book, but they didn't really talk about her getting the consoler duty back.

"Are you going to read or what?" Zeus asked, sighing as he toyed with his Master Bolt.

"Sorry, Lord Zeus," Drew replied sweetly. "I was just distracted by the dazzling wonders of your amazingly deadly Master Bolt,"

Zeus made an impatient "Go on," sign, but his face had an incredibly smug look. Poseidon looked envious and twirled his trident.

Hades sighed. He just hoped these Hazel chapters will end.

**On the way back, Hazel tripped over a gold bar. **

"How big is it?" Connor asked eagerly.

"How much is it worth?" Travis asked, even more eagerly.

**She should have known not to run so fast, but she was afraid of being late for muster. The Fifth Cohort had the nicest centurions in camp. Still, even they would have to punish her if she was tardy. Roman punishments were harsh: scrubbing the streets with a toothbrush, **

Hermes grimaced.

**cleaning the bull pens at the coliseum,**

Artemis grimaced.

**getting sewn inside a sack full of angry weasels and dumped into the Little Tiber—the options were not great.**

The gods murmured in agreement. The demigods agreed a little too well.

**The gold bar popped out of the ground just in time for her foot to hit it. Nico tried to catch her, but she took a spill and scraped her hands.**

"Outch," Annabeth said.

"**You okay?" Nico knelt next to her and reached for the bar of gold.**

"**Don't!" Hazel warned.**

**Nico froze. "Right. Sorry. It's just…jeez. That thing is huge." He pulled a flask of nectar from his aviator jacket and poured a little on Hazel's hands. Immediately the cuts started to heal. "Can you stand?"**

**He helped her up. They both stared at the gold. It was the size of a bread loaf,**

Travis, Connor and Hermes moaned.

**stamped with a serial number and the words u.s. treasury.**

**Nico shook his head. "How in Tartarus—?"**

"**I don't know," Hazel said miserably. "It could've been buried there by robbers or dropped off a wagon a hundred years ago. Maybe it migrated from the nearest bank vault. Whatever's in the ground, anywhere close to me—it just pops up. And the more valuable it is—"**

"**The more dangerous it is." Nico frowned. "Should we cover it up? If the fauns find it…"**

**Hazel imagined a mushroom cloud billowing up from the road, char-broiled fauns tossed in every direction. **

Grover bleated nervously. Several other fauns did too.

**It was too horrible to consider.**

Grover definitely agreed.

"**It should sink back underground after I leave, eventually, but just to be sure…"**

**She'd been practicing this trick, but never with something so heavy and dense. She pointed at the gold bar and tried to concentrate.**

**The gold levitated. She channeled her anger, which wasn't hard—she hated that gold, she hated her curse, she hated thinking about her past and all the ways she'd failed. Her fingers tingled. The gold bar glowed with heat.**

**Nico gulped. "Um, Hazel, are you sure…?"**

**She made a fist. The gold bent like putty. Hazel forced it to twist into a giant, lumpy ring. Then she flicked her hand toward the ground. Her million-dollar doughnut slammed into the earth. It sank so deep, nothing was left but a scar of fresh dirt.**

**Nico's eyes widened. "That was…terrifying."**

**Hazel didn't think it was so impressive compared to the powers of a guy who could reanimate skeletons and bring people back from the dead, but it felt good to surprise him for a change.**

**Inside the camp, horns blew again. The cohorts would be starting roll call, and Hazel had no desire to be sewn into a sack of weasels.**

"Definitely not," Artemis agreed.

"**Hurry!" she told Nico, and they ran for the gates.**

**The first time Hazel had seen the legion assemble, she'd been so intimidated, she'd almost slunk back to the barracks to hide. Even after being at camp for nine months, she still found it an impressive sight.**

**The first four cohorts, each forty kids strong, stood in rows in front of their barracks on either side of the Via Praetoria. The Fifth Cohort assembled at the very end, in front of the principia, since their barracks were tucked in the back corner of camp next to the stables and the latrines. Hazel had to run right down the middle of the legion to reach her place.**

**The campers were dressed for war. Their polished chain mail and greaves gleamed over purple T-shirts and jeans. Sword-and-skull designs decorated their helmets. Even their leather combat boots looked ferocious with their iron cleats, great for marching through mud or stomping on faces.**

The Ares cabin cheered.

"Brutal little things," Demeter muttered distastefully as she glared at them before continuing.

**In front of the legionnaires, like a line of giant dominoes, stood their red and gold shields, each the size of a refrigerator door. Every legionnaire carried a harpoonlike spear called a pilum, a gladius, a dagger, and about a hundred pounds of other equipment. If you were out of shape when you came to the legion, you didn't stay that way for long. Just walking around in your armor was a full-body workout.**

**Hazel and Nico jogged down the street as everyone was coming to attention, so their entrance was really obvious. Their footsteps echoed on the stones. Hazel tried to avoid eye contact, but she caught Octavian at the head of the First Cohort smirking at her, looking smug in his plumed centurion's helmet with a dozen medals pinned on his chest.**

Apollo snorted. "More like fake medals," he muttered.

**Hazel was still seething from his blackmail threats earlier. Stupid augur and his gift of prophecy—of all the people at camp to discover her secrets, why did it have to be him? She was sure he would have told on her weeks ago, except that he knew her secrets were worth more to him as leverage. She wished she'd kept that bar of gold so she could hit him in the face with it.**

"Do it, girlie!" Ares yelled. "I wanna see what happens to _that _scrawny little shrimp!"

**She ran past Reyna, who was cantering back and forth on her pegasus Scipio—nicknamed Skippy because he was the color of peanut butter. The metal dogs Aurum and Argentum trotted at her side. Her purple officer's cape billowed behind her.**

"**Hazel Levesque," she called, "so glad you could join us."**

**Hazel knew better than to respond. She was missing most of her equipment, but she hurried to her place in line next to Frank and stood at attention. Their lead centurion, a big seventeen-year-old guy named Dakota, was just calling her name—the last one on the roll.**

"**Present!" she squeaked.**

**Thank the gods. Technically, she wasn't late.**

**Nico joined Percy Jackson, who was standing off to one side with a couple of guards. Percy's hair was wet from the baths. He'd put on fresh clothes, but he still looked uncomfortable. Hazel couldn't blame him. He was about to be introduced to two hundred heavily armed kids.**

**The Lares were the last ones to fall in. Their purple forms flickered as they jockeyed for places. They had an annoying habit of standing halfway inside living people, so that the ranks looked like a blurry photograph, but finally the centurions got them sorted out.**

**Octavian shouted, "Colors!"**

**The standard-bearers stepped forward. They wore lion-skincapes and held poles decorated with each cohort's emblems. The last to present his standard was Jacob, the legion's eagle bearer. He held a long pole with absolutely nothing on top. The job was supposed to be a big honor, but Jacob obviously hated it. Even though Reyna insisted on following tradition, every time the eagleless pole was raised, Hazel could feel embarrassment rippling through the legion.**

Embarrassment rippled through the gods as well.

Leo continued to play with the machine. When he hit the big red button...

Percy glanced uneasily at Leo. Smoke was spewing out of the machine in his hand. It wouldn't be long before others noticed too.

**Reyna brought her pegasus to a halt.**

"**Romans!" she announced. "You've probably heard about the incursion today. Two gorgons were swept into the river by this newcomer, Percy Jackson. Juno herself guided him here, and proclaimed him a son of Neptune."**

**The kids in the back rows craned their necks to see Percy. He raised his hand and said, "Hi."**

"Typical Seaweed Brain response," Annabeth snorted.

Sparks were flying out of the machine. Leo wriggled it around, trying to find the OFF button.

"**He seeks to join the legion," Reyna continued. "What do the auguries say?"**

"**I have read the entrails!" Octavian announced, as if he'd killed a lion with his bare hands rather than ripping up a stuffed panda pillow. "The auguries are favorable. He is qualified to serve!"**

**The campers gave a shout: "Ave!" Hail!**

**Frank was a little late with his "ave," so it came out as a high-pitched echo. The other legionnaires snickered.**

Ares bared his fists.

**Reyna motioned the senior officers forward—one from each cohort. Octavian, as the most senior centurion, turned to Percy.**

"**Recruit," he asked, "do you have credentials? Letters of reference?"**

**Hazel remembered this from her own arrival. A lot of kids brought letters from older demigods in the outside world, adults who were veterans of the camp. Some recruits had rich and famous sponsors. Some were third- or fourth-generation campers. A good letter could get you a position in the better cohorts, sometimes even special jobs like legion messenger, which made you exempt from the grunt work like digging ditches or conjugating Latin verbs.**

**Percy shifted. "Letters? Um, no."**

**Octavian wrinkled his nose.**

**Unfair! Hazel wanted to shout. Percy had carried a goddess into camp. What better recommendation could you want?**

"For once, I agree with your daughter," Poseidon agreed, glancing at Hades with a somewhat grateful look.

Hades shrunk back into his stone throne.

**But Octavian's family had been sending kids to camp for over a century. He loved reminding recruits that they were less important than he was.**

"Self-centered brute," Hera murmured angrily.

"**No letters," Octavian said regretfully. "Will any legionnaires stand for him?"**

"**I will!" Frank stepped forward. "He saved my life!"**

**Immediately there were shouts of protest from the other cohorts. Reyna raised her hand for quiet and glared at Frank.**

"**Frank Zhang," she said, "for the second time today, I remind you that you are on probatio. Your godly parent has not even claimed you yet. You're not eligible to stand for another camper until you've earned your first stripe."**

**Frank looked like he might die of embarrassment.**

**Hazel couldn't leave him hanging. She stepped out of line and said, "What Frank means is that Percy saved both our lives. I am a full member of the legion. I will stand for Percy Jackson."**

**Frank glanced at her gratefully, but the other campers started to mutter. Hazel was barely eligible. She'd only gotten her stripe a few weeks ago, and the "act of valor" that earned it for her had been mostly an accident. Besides, she was a daughter of Pluto, and a member of the disgraced Fifth Cohort. She wasn't doing Percy much of a favor by giving him her support.**

**Reyna wrinkled her nose, but she turned to Octavian. The augur smiled and shrugged, like the idea amused him.**

**Why not? Hazel thought. Putting Percy in the Fifth would make him less of a threat, and Octavian liked to keep all his enemies in one place.**

"**Very well," Reyna announced. "Hazel Levesque, you may stand for the recruit. Does your cohort accept him?"**

**The other cohorts started coughing, trying not to laugh. Hazel knew what they were thinking: Another loser for the Fifth.**

**Frank pounded his shield against the ground. The other members of the Fifth followed his lead, though they didn't seem very excited. Their centurions, Dakota and Gwen, exchanged pained looks, like: Here we go again.**

The gods snorted.

Leo held his breath. A section of the machine caved in. A platform rose, holding a...

Leo stared in disbelief as the machine produced a wooden horse the size of an average pencil box, neatly carved and painted. Its saddle was cherry red, its flanks were spotted with grey and its warm brown eyes glanced at Leo curiously.

"Aw... It's so cute!" Lacy cooed. Cabin Ten mobbed the horse, petting it like a cute little kitten.

Leo just rolled his eyes.

"**My cohort has spoken," Dakota said. "We accept the recruit."**

**Reyna looked at Percy with pity. "Congratulations, Percy Jackson. You stand on probatio. You will be given a tablet with your name and cohort. In one year's time, or as soon as you complete an act of valor, you will become a full member of the Twelfth Legion Fulminata. Serve Rome, obey the rules of the legion, and defend the camp with honor. Senatus Populusque Romanus!"**

**The rest of the legion echoed the cheer.**

**Reyna wheeled her pegasus away from Percy, like she was glad to be done with him. Skippy spread his beautiful wings. Hazel couldn't help feeling a pang of envy. She'd give anything for a horse like that, but it would never happen. Horses were for officers only, or barbarian cavalry, not for Roman legionnaires.**

"**Centurions," Reyna said, "you and your troops have one hour for dinner. Then we will meet on the Field of Mars. The First and Second Cohorts will defend. The Third, Fourth, and Fifth will attack. Good fortune!"**

**A bigger cheer went up—for the war games and for dinner. The cohorts broke ranks and ran for the mess hall.**

**Hazel waved at Percy, who made his way through the crowd with Nico at his side. To Hazel's surprise, Nico was beaming at her.**

"Dude," Travis gasped, glancing at Nico. "You can SMILE?"

"I didn't even know that Nico had smiling genes in him!" Connor gawped.

Nico shrugged modestly, but didn't smile.

"**Good job, Sis," he said. **

"SIS?" Percy glanced at Nico, shocked. "You actually use abbreviations?"

Nico shrank down into the shadows.

Hades sighed.

"**That took guts, standing for him."**

**He had never called her Sis before. She wondered if that was what he had called Bianca.**

Nico flinched.

**One of the guards had given Percy his probatio nameplate. Percy strung it on his leather necklace with the strange beads.**

"**Thanks, Hazel," he said. "Um, what exactly does it mean—your standing for me?"**

"**I guarantee your good behavior," Hazel explained. "I teach you the rules, answer your questions, make sure you don't disgrace the legion."**

"**And…if I do something wrong?"**

"**Then I get killed along with you," Hazel said. "Hungry? Let's eat."**

Drew clasped the book together. She carefully reapplied her lipstick and smiled prettily at everyone.

"All right. Who's next?" she asked.

"I'll read it!" Connor called excitedly.

"No! I'll read it!" Travis insisted.

"No, I will," Demeter snapped her fingers. Strawberry vines snaked over and snagged the book from Drew's hands, hoisting it up for Demeter.

"**VIII Hazel"**

Demeter began.

"When's it a Frank chapter?" someone asked.

Hades agreed.


	8. Chapter 8

**Hi, hi, hi.**

**Sorry for the long wait, everything's been honest to goodnessly chaotic. **

**So... ladida! Here it is! All words in bold belong to RR. **

"**Hazel VIII..." **Demeter began.

_How many more? _Hades gripped his armrests.

**At least the camp food was good. Invisible wind spirits—aurae—waited on the campers and seemed to know exactly what everyone wanted. They blew plates and cups around so quickly, the mess hall looked like a delicious hurricane.**

Percy sighed.

Annabeth poked him.

**If you got up too fast, you were likely to get beaned by beans or potted by a pot roast.**

The demigods chuckled.

**Hazel got shrimp gumbo—her favorite comfort food. It made her think about being a little girl in New Orleans, before her curse set in and her mom got so bitter.**

Hades sighed too. _Those were the good old days..._

**Percy got a cheeseburger and a strange-looking soda that was bright blue.**

"Typical Percy," Annabeth said fondly. Nico scowled.

"Dude," Percy leaned over to Leo.

Leo stopped fiddling with the little horse and glance at Percy. "What?"

"Do I still eat blue food in the future?" he asked.

"Yeah," Leo answered. He remembered the blue pancakes, pies, etc.

**Hazel didn't understand that, but Percy tried it and grinned.**

"**This makes me happy," he said. "I don't know why…but it does."**

**Just for a moment, one of the aurae became visible—an elfin girl in a white silk dress. She giggled as she topped off Percy's glass, then disappeared in a gust.**

Juniper gave Grover _the _look.

**The mess hall seemed especially noisy tonight. Laughter echoed off the walls. War banners rustled from cedar ceiling beams as aurae blew back and forth, keeping everyone's plates full. The campers dined Roman style, sitting on couches around low tables. Kids were constantly getting up and trading places, spreading rumors about who liked whom and all the other gossip.**

The Aphrodite girls giggled.

Annabeth frowned when she ran out of paper.

_Great, _she thought. _How am I going to keep track of how New Rome looks like now?_

**As usual, the Fifth Cohort took the place of least honor.**

The mood darkened immediately.

**Their tables were at the back of the dining hall next to the kitchen. Hazel's table was always the least crowded. Tonight it was she and Frank, as usual, with Percy and Nico and their centurion Dakota, who sat there, Hazel figured, because he felt obligated to welcome the new recruit.**

**Dakota reclined glumly on his couch, mixing sugar into his drink and chugging it. He was a beefy guy with curly black hair and eyes that didn't quite line up straight, so Hazel felt like the world was leaning whenever she looked at him. It wasn't a good sign that he was drinking so much so early in the night.**

Annabeth studied Dionysus. Dionysus snapped his fingers for another Wine Magazine, but... did he seem... somewhat concerned...?

"**So." He burped, waving his goblet. "Welcome to the Percy, party." He frowned. "Party, Percy. Whatever."**

"**Um, thanks," Percy said, but his attention was focused on Nico. "I was wondering if we could talk, you know…about where I might have seen you before."**

Nico shrank down into his aviator jacket. Those _looks _were making him feel a little queasy.

"**Sure," Nico said a little too quickly. "The thing is, I spend most of my time in the Underworld. So unless I met you there somehow—"**

**Dakota belched. "Ambassador from Pluto, they call him. Reyna's never sure what to do with this guy when he visits.**

**You should have seen her face when he showed up with Hazel, asking Reyna to take her in. Um, no offense."**

"**None taken." Nico seemed relieved to change the topic. "Dakota was really helpful, standing for Hazel."**

**Dakota blushed. "Yeah, well…She seemed like a good kid. Turned out I was right. Last month, when she saved me from, uh, you know."**

"**Oh, man!" Frank looked up from his fish and chips. "Percy, you should have seen her! That's how Hazel got her stripe. The unicorns decided to stampede—"**

"**It was nothing," Hazel said.**

"**Nothing?" Frank protested. "Dakota would've gotten trampled! You stood right in front of them, shooed them away, saved his hide. I've never seen anything like it."**

Cabin Ten and Aphrodite cooed.

Leo fiddled with some gears and the horse. After a few minutes, his product was a windup toy horse. He tugged at a wire, and soon, a pretty little horsie zoomed around the Throne Room, making _whirr-whirr-whirr _noises, careening wildly as it turned.

Cabin Ten squealed.

Then...

"NOOOOOO!" Leo howled as the horse zoomed past Ares... but not fast enough. Are's massive foot came crashing down, and reduced the pretty horse into nothing but a pile of rubble.

"Ares!" Hephaestus and Aphrodite protested at the same time, along with most of the demigods.

"Whoops," Ares muttered, though he didn't sound very sorry at all.

**Hazel bit her lip. She didn't like to talk about it, and she felt uncomfortable, the way Frank made her sound like a hero. In truth, she'd been mostly afraid that the unicorns would hurt themselves in their panic. Their horns were precious metal—silver and gold—so she'd managed to turn them aside simply by concentrating, steering the animals by their horns and guiding them back to the stables. It had gotten her a full place in the legion, but it had also started rumors about her strange powers—rumors that reminded her of the bad old days.**

_Fates... _Hades thought grimly. _Please do NOT mention Marie again! I don't need that guilt on my shoulders!_

**Percy studied her. Those sea-green eyes made her unsettled.**

Annabeth stiffened visibly.

"**Did you and Nico grow up together?" he asked.**

The demigods snorted.

"**No," Nico answered for her. "I found out that Hazel was my sister only recently. She's from New Orleans."**

**That was true, of course, but not the whole truth. Nico let people think he'd stumbled upon her in modern New Orleans and brought her to camp. It was easier than telling the real story.**

"It is," Hades agreed.

**Hazel had tried to pass herself off as a modern kid. It wasn't easy. Thankfully, demigods didn't use a lot of technology at camp. Their powers tended to make electronic gadgets go haywire. But the first time she went on furlough to Berkeley, she had nearly had a stroke. Televisions, computers, iPods, the Internet…It made her glad to get back to the world of ghosts, unicorns, and gods. That seemed much less of a fantasy than the twenty-first century.**

"I'd go for twenty-first century, any time!" Jake said to himself. Nyssa agreed.

**Nico was still talking about the children of Pluto. "There aren't many of us," he said, "so we have to stick together. When I found Hazel—"**

"**You have other sisters?" Percy asked, almost as if he knew the answer. Hazel wondered again when he and Nico had met, and what her brother was hiding.**

Nico stiffened, even more visibly.

"**One," Nico admitted. "But she died. I saw her spirit a few times in the Underworld, except that the last time I went down there..."**

**To bring her back, Hazel thought, though Nico didn't say that.**

"**She was gone." Nico's voice turned hoarse. "She used to be in Elysium—like, the Underworld paradise—but she chose to be reborn into a new life. Now I'll never see her again. I was just lucky to find Hazel…in New Orleans, I mean."**

**Dakota grunted. "Unless you believe the rumors. Not saying that I do."**

"**Rumors?" Percy asked.**

**From across the room, Don the faun yelled, "Hazel!"**

**Hazel had never been so glad to see the faun. He wasn't allowed in camp, but of course he always managed to get in. He was working his way toward their table, grinning at everybody, sneaking food off plates, and pointing at campers: "Hey! Call me!" A flying pizza smacked him in the head, and he disappeared behind a couch. Then he popped up, still grinning, and made his way over.**

"**My favorite girl!" He smelled like a wet goat wrapped in old cheese.**

"Blah-ha-ha!" Grover bleated indignantly. "Do fauns even have hygiene?"

_The answer is no, _Leo thought, unsuccessfully trying to piece the horse together.

**He leaned over their couches and checked out their food. "Say, new kid, you going to eat that?"**

**Percy frowned. "Aren't fauns vegetarian?"**

"**Not the cheeseburger, man! The plate!" He sniffed Percy's hair. "Hey…what's that smell?"**

"**Don!" Hazel said. "Don't be rude."**

"**No, man, I just—"**

**Their house god Vitellius shimmered into existence, standing half embedded in Frank's couch. "Fauns in the dining hall! What are we coming to? Centurion Dakota, do your duty!"**

"**I am," Dakota grumbled into his goblet. "I'm having dinner!"**

**Don was still sniffing around Percy. "Man, you've got an empathy link with a faun!"**

**Percy leaned away from him. "A what?"**

"**An empathy link! It's real faint, like somebody's suppressed it, but—"**

"Hera..." Percy growled. Even Grover managed an angry face.

Hera sniffed. "That was completely necessary!"

"Demeter, please continue," Annabeth said hurriedly. He did not want Percy to be turned into a peacock.

"**I know what!" Nico stood suddenly. "Hazel, how about we give you and Frank time to get Percy oriented? Dakota and I can visit the praetor's table. Don and Vitellius, you come too. We can discuss strategies for the war games."**

"**Strategies for losing?" Dakota muttered.**

"**Death Boy is right!" Vitellius said. "This legion fights worse than we did in Judea, and that was the first time we lost our eagle. Why, if I were in charge—"**

"**Could I just eat the silverware first?" Don asked.**

"**Let's go!" Nico stood and grabbed Don and Vitellius by the ears.**

**Nobody but Nico could actually touch the Lares. Vitellius spluttered with outrage as he was dragged off to the praetor's table.**

Dionysus chucked behind the magazine. He tried to maintain an indifferent expression, but getting the metal image out of his head is seriously difficult.

Hestia glanced at Dionysus. Why in the world was the wine god... shaking?

"**Ow!" Don protested. "Man, watch the 'fro!"**

"**Come on, Dakota!" Nico called over his shoulder.**

**The centurion got up reluctantly. He wiped his mouth—uselessly, since it was permanently stained red. "Back soon." He shook all over, like a dog trying to get dry. Then he staggered away, his goblet sloshing.**

"**What was that about?" Percy asked. "And what's wrong with Dakota?"**

**Frank sighed. "He's okay. He's a son of Bacchus, the wine god. He's got a drinking problem."**

"WHAT?" the gods yelled.

Dionysus fumbled. The wine magazine tumbled to the ground. "What?"

**Percy's eyes widened. "You let him drink wine?"**

"Just my thoughts," Hera muttered.

"**Gods, no!" Hazel said. "That would be a disaster.**

"It would be," Demeter growled. "Dionysus, letting your son drink wine..."

"Please, continue," Hera said quickly.

Demeter scowled, but did what Hera said.

Dionysus tapped his chin. He twirled a finger around a grape vine before summoning a glass of wine, twirling the wineglass around and around his fingers without sloshing the liquid out.

Leo couldn't stop staring at the wine. It was almost hypnotic, really.

**He's addicted to red Kool-Aid. Drinks it with three times the normal sugar, and he's already ADHD—you know, attention deficit/hyperactive. One of these days, his head is going to explode."**

"Will it go POP or BAM?" Travis asked.

"No, I bet it would go BLAHMHEAKDFKJDL!" Connor insisted. Leo had no idea how he pronounced it.

"No, it would go..."

"BOYS!" Hestia said sternly.

Travis and Connor gave each other sheepish looks. Then, they lowered their volume and continued to bet.

Dionysus cringed. Dakota was a good kid. He doesn't deserve his head to be blown off.

**Percy looked over at the praetor's table. Most of the senior officers were in deep conversation with Reyna. Nico and his two captives, Don and Vitellius, stood on the periphery. Dakota was running back and forth along a line of stacked shields, banging his goblet on them like they were a xylophone.**

"**ADHD," Percy said. "You don't say."**

**Hazel tried not to laugh. "Well…most demigods are. Or dyslexic. Just being a demigod means that our brains are wired differently. Like you—you said you had trouble reading."**

"**Are you guys that way too?" Percy asked.**

"**I don't know," Hazel admitted. "Maybe. Back in my day, they just called kids like us 'lazy.'"**

Hades frowned vaguely.

**Percy frowned. "Back in your day?"**

Leo wondered why Hades's face looked like a squashed tomato.

**Hazel cursed herself.**

**Luckily for her, Frank spoke up: "I wish I was ADHD or dyslexic. All I got is lactose intolerance."**

"Ooh!" the demigods said together.

**Percy grinned. "Seriously?"**

**Frank might've been the silliest demigod ever, but Hazel thought he was cute when he pouted.**

Aphrodite just giggled.

**His shoulders slumped. "And I love ice cream, too.…"**

This earned a pretty big laugh from the demigods.

**Percy laughed. Hazel couldn't help joining in. It was good to sit at dinner and actually feel like she was among friends.**

"**Okay, so tell me," Percy said, "why is it bad to be in the Fifth Cohort? You guys are great."**

**The compliment made Hazel's toes tingle. "It's…complicated. Aside from being Pluto's kid, I want to ride horses."**

"**That's why you use a cavalry sword?"**

**She nodded. "It's stupid, I guess. Wishful thinking. There's only one pegasus at camp—Reyna's. The unicorns are just kept for medicine, because the shavings off their horns cure poison and stuff. Anyway, Roman fighting is always done on foot. Cavalry…they kind of look down on that. So they look down on me."**

"**Their loss," Percy said. "What about you, Frank?"**

"**Archery," he muttered. "They don't like that either, unless you're a child of Apollo. Then you've got an excuse. I hope my dad is Apollo,**

"YES!" Apollo yelled.

"Frank!" Ares cried out indignantly.

"Frank is your child?" Athena asked.

"Hoolp!" Ares choked.

**but I don't know. I can't do poetry very well.**

Apollo looked heartbroken.

**And I'm not sure I want to be related to Octavian."**

"Clever boy," Ares said fondly.

"**Can't blame you," Percy said. "But you're excellent with the bow—the way you pegged those gorgons? Forget what other people think."**

**Frank's face turned as red as Dakota's Kool-Aid. "Wish I could. They all think I should be a sword fighter because I'm big and bulky." He looked down at his body, like he couldn't quite believe it was his. "They say I'm too stocky for an archer. Maybe if my dad would ever claim me…"**

**They ate in silence for a few minutes. A dad who wouldn't claim you…Hazel knew that feeling. She sensed Percy could relate, too.**

Big stinky look time.

"**You asked about the Fifth," she said at last. "Why it's the worst cohort. That actually started way before us."**

**She pointed to the back wall, where the legion's standards were on display. "See the empty pole in the middle?"**

"**The eagle," Percy said.**

**Hazel was stunned. "How'd you know?"**

**Percy shrugged. "Vitellius was talking about how the legion lost its eagle a long time ago—the first time, he said. He acted like it was a huge disgrace. I'm guessing that's what's missing. And from the way you and Reyna were talking earlier, I'm guessing your eagle got lost a second time, more recently, and it had something to do with the Fifth Cohort."**

**Hazel made a mental note not to underestimate Percy again. When he'd first arrived, she'd thought he was a little goofy from the questions he'd asked—about the Feast of Tuna**

Fortuna flushed angrily. "I NEED to teach that boy some..."

**and all—but clearly he was smarter than he let on.**

"**You're right," she said. "That's exactly what happened."**

"**So what is this eagle, anyway? Why is it a big deal?"**

**Frank looked around to make sure no one was eavesdropping. "It's the symbol of the whole camp—a big eagle made of gold. It's supposed to protect us in battle and make our enemies afraid. Each legion's eagle gave it all sorts of power, and ours came from Jupiter himself. Supposedly Julius Caesar nicknamed our legion 'Fulminata'—armed with lightning—because of what the eagle could do."**

"**I don't like lightning," Percy said.**

"**Yeah, well," Hazel said, "it didn't make us invincible. The Twelfth lost its eagle the first time way back in ancient days, during the Jewish Rebellion."**

"**I think I saw a movie like that," Percy said.**

The gods snorted.

Giving up on his little horse, Leo placed it neatly in a pile and started offering breath mints to Travis and Connor.

**Hazel shrugged. "Could be. There have been lots of books and movies about legions losing their eagles. Unfortunately it happened quite a few times. The eagle was so important…well, archaeologists have never recovered a single eagle from ancient Rome. Each legion guarded theirs to the last man, because it was charged with power from the gods. They'd rather hide it or melt it down than surrender it to an enemy.**

Jupiter smiled proudly.

"OI! It's MY turn!" Zeus yelled and broke through.

The assembly stared.

Zeus grunted. "Go on,"

**The Twelfth was lucky the first time. We got our eagle back. But the second time…"**

"**You guys were there?" Percy asked.**

**They both shook their heads.**

"**I'm almost as new as you." Frank tapped his probatio plate. "Just got here last month. But everyone's heard the story. It's bad luck to even talk about this. There was this huge expedition to Alaska back in the eighties.…"**

"**That prophecy you noticed in the temple," Hazel continued, "the one about the seven demigods and the Doors of Death? Our senior praetor at the time was Michael Varus,**

The gods sighed in remembrance. After all, Michael was a good person.

**from the Fifth Cohort. Back then the Fifth was the best in camp. He thought it would bring glory to the legion if he could figure out the prophecy and make it come true—save the world from storm and fire and all that. He talked to the augur, and the augur said the answer was in Alaska. But he warned Michael it wasn't time yet. The prophecy wasn't for him."**

"It isn't," Leo agreed. "Lucky him."

Percy and Annabeth mumbled in agreement.

"**But he went anyway," Percy guessed. "What happened?"**

**Frank lowered his voice. "Long, gruesome story. Almost the entire Fifth Cohort was wiped out. Most of legion's Imperial gold weapons were lost, along with the eagle. The survivors went crazy or refused to talk about what had attacked them."**

**I know, Hazel thought solemnly. But she kept silent.**

"**Since the eagle was lost," Frank continued, "the camp has been getting weaker. Quests are more dangerous. Monsters attack the borders more often. Morale is lower. The last month or so, things have been getting much worse, much faster."**

"**And the Fifth Cohort took the blame," Percy guessed. "So now everyone thinks we're cursed."**

**Hazel realized her gumbo was cold. She sipped a spoonful, but the comfort food didn't taste very comforting. "We've been the outcasts of the legion since…well, since the Alaska disaster. Our reputation got better when Jason became praetor—"**

Thalia stiffened. In a way, she was proud and nervous for her little brother.

"**The kid who's missing?" Percy asked.**

"**Yeah," Frank said. "I never met him. Before my time. But I hear he was a good leader. He practically grew up in the Fifth Cohort. He didn't care what people thought about us. He started to rebuild our reputation. Then he disappeared."**

"Poof!" Ares waggled his fingers. Zeus growled.

Dionysus sighed. He stopped torturing/twirling his grape vine and summoned a can of diet coke, which he sipped leisurely.

"**Which put us back at square one," Hazel said bitterly. "Made us look cursed all over again. I'm sorry, Percy. Now you know what you've gotten yourself into."**

**Percy sipped his blue soda and gazed thoughtfully across the dining hall. "I don't even know where I come from…but I've got a feeling this isn't the first time I've been an underdog." He focused on Hazel and managed a smile. "Besides, joining the legion is better than being chased through the wilderness by monsters. I've got myself some new friends. Maybe together we can turn things around for the Fifth Cohort, huh?"**

**A horn blew at the end of the hall. The officers at the praetor's table got to their feet—even Dakota, his mouth vampire-red from Kool-Aid.**

The demigods chuckled.

"**The games begin!" Reyna announced. The campers cheered and rushed to collect their equipment from the stacks along the walls.**

"**So we're the attacking team?" Percy asked over the noise. "Is that good?"**

**Hazel shrugged. "Good news: we get the elephant. Bad news—"**

"**Let me guess," said Percy.**

"We always lose," Percy suggested. 

"**The Fifth Cohort always loses."**

"HA! Nice guess!" Chris said approvingly.

Percy grinned. Annabeth hugged him. Nico scowled.

Leo wondered how many more times Nico would scowl before that scowl became permanent on his face.

**Frank slapped Percy on the shoulder. "I love this guy. Come on, new friend. Let's go chalk up my thirteenth defeat in a row!"**

For a really weird reason, the demigods released an almighty whoop.

"What's the next chapter?" Annabeth asked.

"Frank's chapter," Demeter answered.

"I'm reading!" Ares said brusquely.

Demeter had a funny look on her face, but didn't protest. Ares practically tore the book in half (much to Leo's delight) as he scrambled for the pages.

"**IX Frank..."**


	9. Chapter 9

**Hello, everyone. **

**Here's the new update! **

**I really have to thank quite a few people for supporting me all along through the writing process. **

**So... special thanks to Awesome as Annabeth, Cherry (Guest), A-Figher lady, HoOisawesome, The AwesomeQueenOfNerds, LiveThenDie and gamelover41592. Thank you all!**

**Disclaimer: Words in bold belong to RR. **

"**Frank IX..." **Ares read.

Leo fiddled with the machine.

**As he marched to the war games, Frank replayed the day in his mind. He couldn't believe how close he'd come to death.**

"You mean the gorgons?" Annabeth asked.

"No, not the gorgons," Hera said absently.

**That morning on sentry duty, before Percy showed up, Frank had almost told Hazel his secret. **

Aphrodite cooed.

**The two of them had been standing for hours in the chilly fog, watching the commuter traffic on Highway 24. Hazel had been complaining about the cold.**

"Aren't all children of Hades immune to cold?" Katie pointed out.

"Not necessarily," Hades muttered.

Nico scowled.

"**I'd give anything to be warm," she said, her teeth chattering. "I wish we had a fire." Even with her armor on, she looked great. Frank liked the way her cinnamon-toast–colored hair curled around the edges of her helmet, and the way her chin dimpled when she frowned.**

Cabin Ten giggled.

**She was tiny compared to Frank, which made him feel like a big clumsy ox. He wanted to put his arms around her to warm her up,**

Aphrodite perked up. She leaned forward, listening eagerly.

**but he'd never do that. She'd probably hit him, and he'd lose the only friend he had at camp.**

Cabin Ten fell back, disappointed.

_Why do I have a really weird vision of Beauty and the Beast? _Drew thought.

**I could make a really impressive fire, he thought. Of course, it would only burn for a few minutes, and then I'd die.…**

"Huh?"

It was so ridiculous, Leo laughed. Everyone (except for Hera and Ares) promptly reached up and scratched their heads at the same time, in perfect unison.

**It was scary that he even considered it. Hazel had that effect on him. Whenever she wanted something, he had the irrational urge to provide it. He wanted to be the old-fashioned knight riding to her rescue,**

Cabin Ten's and Aphrodite's giggles were starting to drive Leo _slightly _bonkers.

**which was stupid, as she was way more capable at everything than he was.**

**He imagined what his grandmother would say: Frank Zhang riding to the rescue? Ha! He'd fall off his horse and break his neck.**

Dionysus chuckled. He closed his eyes. Immediately, he found himself searching through a rack of wine magazines, since he had quickly teleported out of Mount Olympus. After selecting a decent one, he snapped his fingers and appeared back in the Throne Room. No one missed his two second absence.

**Hard to believe it had been only six weeks since he'd left his grandmother's house—six weeks since his mom's funeral.**

**Everything had happened since then: wolves arriving at his grandmother's door, the journey to Camp Jupiter, the weeks he'd spent in the Fifth Cohort trying not to be a complete failure. Through it all, he'd kept the half-burned piece of firewood wrapped in a cloth in his coat pocket.**

**Keep it close, his grandmother had warned. As long as it is safe, you are safe.**

"Oh snap," Annabeth said. "Please don't tell me..."

"Yes, Annabeth," Hera said. "It is exactly..."

**The problem was that it burned so easily. He remembered the trip south from Vancouver. When the temperature dropped below freezing near Mount Hood, Frank had brought out the piece of tinder and held it in his hands, imagining how nice it would be to have some fire. Immediately, the charred end blazed with a searing yellow flame. It lit up the night and warmed Frank to the bone, but he could feel his life slipping away, as if he were being consumed rather than the wood.**

The assembly gasped.

**He'd thrust the flame into a snowbank. For a horrible moment it kept burning. **

"Oh, Frank," Chris said in a hushed whisper.

**When it finally went out, Frank got his panic under control. He wrapped the piece of wood and put it back in his coat pocket, determined not to bring it out again. But he couldn't forget it.**

**It was as though someone had said, "Whatever you do, don't think about that stick bursting into flame!"**

**So of course, that's all he thought about.**

Leo tutted as he fiddled around with his machine. After getting boxed in the face, Leo set the machine down and took out a few rubber bands, which he began shooting with. In less than a second, Percy, Will, Jake and... Clarisse were glaring at him angrily, with rubber band burns on their faces...

**On sentry duty with Hazel, he would try to take his mind off it. He loved spending time with her. He asked her about growing up in New Orleans, but she got edgy at his questions, so they made small talk instead. Just for fun, they tried to speak French to each other. Hazel had some Creole blood on her mother's side. Frank had taken French in school. Neither of them was very fluent, and Louisiana French was so different from Canadian French it was almost impossible to converse. When Frank asked Hazel how her beef was feeling today,**

The demigods chuckled.

**and she replied that his shoe was green,**

Another round of laughter.

**they decided to give up.**

**Then Percy Jackson had arrived.**

**Sure, Frank had seen kids fight monsters before. He'd fought plenty of them himself on his journey from Vancouver. But he'd never seen gorgons. He'd never seen a goddess in person. And the way Percy had controlled the Little Tiber—wow. Frank wished he had powers like that.**

**He could still feel the gorgons' claws pressing into his arms and smell their snaky breath—like dead mice and poison. **

The demigods shuddered visibly.

Hestia felt a slight pang of guilt, watching the children shudder like that. The gods should really be more helpful, sometimes.

**If not for Percy, those grotesque hags would have carried him away. He'd be a pile of bones in the back of a Bargain Mart by now.**

Ares frowned. Frank being a pile of bones at the back of a Bargain Mart was a seriously disturbing picture, even for the god of war and violence and weapons and fighting stuff.

**After the incident at the river, Reyna had sent Frank to the armory, which had given him way too much time to think.**

**While he polished swords, he remembered Juno, warning them to unleash Death.**

**Unfortunately Frank had a pretty good idea of what the goddess meant. He had tried to hide his shock when Juno had appeared, but she looked exactly like his grandmother had described—right down to the goatskin cape.**

**She chose your path years ago, Grandmother had told him. And it will not be easy.**

**Frank glanced at his bow in the corner of the armory. He'd feel better if Apollo would claim him as a son. **

Apollo release a wild whoop.

Ares scowled. _He is NOT your son!_

**Frank had been sure his godly parent would speak up on his sixteenth birthday, which had passed two weeks ago.**

**Sixteen was an important milestone for Romans. It had been Frank's first birthday at camp. But nothing had happened.**

The demigods glared at the gods while the gods shifted uneasily.

Leo twiddled his thumbs for the one hundredth time. He tried twiddling his toes, but seriously, sneakers can be really tight sometimes.

**Now Frank hoped he would be claimed on the Feast of Fortuna, though from what Juno had said, they'd be in a battle for their lives on that day.**

**His father had to be Apollo. **

Apollo gave everyone his sunshine smile. Those sitting near him actually had to shield their eyes or the after-images wouldn't fade.

**Archery was the only thing Frank was good at.**

"YES!" Apollo whooped.

"Don't forget, I'm also in charge of archery!" Artemis reminded Apollo.

**Years ago, his mother had told him that their family name, Zhang, meant "master of bows" in Chinese. That must have been a hint about his dad.**

Apollo grinned.

**Frank put down his polishing rags. He looked at the ceiling. "Please, Apollo, if you're my dad, tell me. I want to be an archer like you."**

"I'm lovin' this kid," Apollo said gleefully.

"**No, you don't," a voice grumbled.**

**Frank jumped out of his seat. Vitellius, the Fifth Cohort's Lar, was shimmering behind him. His full name was Gaius Vitellius Reticulus, but the other cohorts called him Vitellius the Ridiculous.**

The demigods chuckled.

_Vitellius the Ridiculous, _Hades thought. He hid a chuckle.

"**Hazel Levesque sent me to check on you," Vitellius said, hiking up his sword belt. "Good thing, too. Look at the state of this armor!"**

**Vitellius wasn't one to talk. His toga was baggy, his tunic barely fit over his belly, and his scabbard fell off his belt every three seconds, but Frank didn't bother pointing that out.**

"**As for archers," the ghost said, "they're wimps! **

Apollo and Artemis shuddered with rage.

**Back in my day, archery was a job for barbarians. **

"How... Dare... That... Stupid... Ghost..." Artemis eked out.

"Archery... Is... Not... For... Barbarians..." Apollo gritted his teeth.

Suddenly, both gods glanced at each other fiercely.

"You take his feet and I'll finish him," Artemis said.

"No, you immobilize him while I kill..."

"CHILDREN!" Zeus boomed.

"WE"RE NOT CHILDREN!" Artemis and Apollo shrieked.

"Please, read," Zeus sighed tiredly.

"But I want more action..." Ares protested

"READ!"

Ares groaned loudly and continued.

**A good Roman should be in the fray, gutting his enemy with spear and sword like a civilized man! That's how we did it in the Punic Wars. Roman up, boy!"**

**Frank sighed. "I thought you were in Caesar's army."**

"**I was!"**

"**Vitellius, Caesar was hundreds of years after the Punic Wars. You couldn't have been alive that long."**

"**Questioning my honor?" Vitellius looked so mad, his purple aura glowed. He drew his ghostly gladius and yelled, "Take that!"**

Annabeth gasped. "Was he skewered?

**He ran the sword, which was about as deadly as a laser pointer, through Frank's chest a few times.**

"Oh," Annabeth said, visibly relieved.

Everyone seemed relieved that their Hero of Olympus wasn't skewered by a crazy, 1,000 year old Lar too.

"**Ouch," Frank said, just to be nice.**

**Vitellius looked satisfied and put his sword away. "Perhaps you'll think twice about doubting your elders next time! Now…it was your sixteenth birthday recently, wasn't it?"**

**Frank nodded. He wasn't sure how Vitellius knew this, since Frank hadn't told anyone except Hazel, but ghosts had ways of finding out secrets. Eavesdropping while invisible was probably one of them.**

"**So that's why you're such a grumpy gladiator," the Lar said. "Understandable. The sixteenth birthday is your day of manhood! Your godly parent should have claimed you, no doubt about it, even if with only a small omen. Perhaps he thought you were younger. You look younger, you know, with that pudgy baby face."**

"**Thanks for reminding me," Frank muttered.**

"**Yes, I remember my sixteenth," Vitellius said happily. "Wonderful omen! A chicken in my underpants."**

There was a moment of complete silence.

"EXCUSE ME!?"

"**Excuse me?"**

**Vitellius puffed up with pride. "That's right! I was at the river changing my clothes for my Liberalia. Rite of passage into manhood, you know. We did things properly back then. I'd taken off my childhood toga and was washing up to don the adult one. Suddenly, a pure-white chicken ran out of nowhere, dove into my loincloth, and ran off with it. I wasn't wearing it at the time."**

Travis and Connor were hiccuping in perfect harmony. "Ch-ch-ch-ch-chick-ck-ck-ck-cken in the u-u-u-u-u-u-und-d-d-derpants..."

Katie was wiping her eyes, and Jake cracked a crusty smile. Even Drew managed a small giggle before rearranging her face into a "That's so immature!" look.

"**That's good," Frank said. "And can I just say: Too much information?"**

"Lovin' that kid," Ares muttered quickly.

"**Mm." Vitellius wasn't listening. "That was the sign I was descended from Aesculapius, the god of medicine. I took my cognomen, my third name, Reticulus, because it meant undergarment, to remind me of the blessed day when a chicken stole my loincloth."**

"So... Vitellius the Ridiculous really means Vitellius the Underwear," Percy said.

"**So…your name means Mr. Underwear?"**

"**Praise the gods! **

"For being named after underwear?" Travis giggled.

The twins giggled obnoxiously together in perfect harmony.

Hera shot the twins stinky looks.

**I became a surgeon in the legion, and the rest is history." He spread his arms generously. "Don't give up, boy. Maybe your father is running late. Most omens are not as dramatic as a chicken, of course. I knew a fellow once who got a dung beetle—"**

"That's even worse than a chicken!" Will noted.

Nico nodded in agreement.

"**Thanks, Vitellius," Frank said. "But I have to finish polishing this armor—"**

"**And the gorgon's blood?"**

**Frank froze. He hadn't told anyone about that. As far as he knew, only Percy had seen him pocket the vials at the river, and they hadn't had a chance to talk about it.**

"**Come now," Vitellius chided. "I'm a healer. I know the legends about gorgon's blood. Show me the vials."**

**Reluctantly, Frank brought out the two ceramic flask she'd retrieved from the Little Tiber. Spoils of war were often left behind when a monster dissolved—sometimes a tooth, or a weapon, or even the monster's entire head. **

Percy briefly remembered Medusa.

**Frank had known what the two vials were immediately. By tradition they belonged to Percy, who had killed the gorgons, but Frank couldn't help thinking, What if I could use them?**

Apollo tutted disapprovingly.

"**Yes." Vitellius studied the vials approvingly. "Blood taken from the right side of a gorgon's body can cure any disease, even bring the dead back to life. The goddess Minerva once gave a vial of it to my divine ancestor, Aesculapius. But blood taken from the left side of a gorgon—instantly fatal. So, which is which?"**

**Frank looked down at the vials. "I don't know. They're identical."**

"**Ha! But you're hoping the right vial could solve your problem with the burned stick, eh? Maybe break your curse?"**

Ares's breath hitched.

**Frank was so stunned, he couldn't talk.**

"**Oh, don't worry, boy." The ghost chuckled. "I won't tell anyone. I'm a Lar, a protector of the cohort! I wouldn't do anything to endanger you."**

"Oh, would you?" Hades muttered.

Leo fiddled with the machine again. Then, he hit the wrong button...

"**You stabbed me through the chest with your sword."**

"**Trust me, boy! I have sympathy for you, carrying the curse of that Argonaut."**

"**The ... what?"**

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Every un-deaf person covered his/her ears immediately.

"STOP THAT NOISE!" Zeus bellowed.

Leo grabbed at the machine frantically. "I can't! I can't!

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Hephaestus snapped his fingers and the machine disintegrated, along with the noise.

Good news: the noise stopped.

Bad news: Leo was out of entertainment.

**Vitellius waved away the question. "Don't be modest. You've got ancient roots. Greek as well as Roman. It's no wonder Juno—" He tilted his head, as if listening to a voice from above. His face went slack. His entire aura flickered green. "But I've said enough! At any rate, I'll let you work out who gets the gorgon's blood. I suppose that newcomer Percy could use it too, with his memory problem."**

**Frank wondered what Vitellius had been about to say and what had made him so scared, but he got the feeling that for once Vitellius was going to keep his mouth shut.**

**He looked down at the two vials. He hadn't even thought of Percy's needing them. He felt guilty that he'd been intending to use the blood for himself. "Yeah. Of course. He should have it."**

"**Ah, but if you want my advice…" Vitellius looked up nervously again. "You should both wait on that gorgon blood. If my sources are right, you're going to need it on your quest."**

"**Quest?"**

**The doors of the armory flew open.**

**Reyna stormed in with her metal greyhounds. Vitellius vanished. He might have liked chickens, but he did not like the praetor's dogs.**

"Agreed," Artemis muttered.

"**Frank." Reyna looked troubled. "That's enough with the armor. Go find Hazel. Get Percy Jackson down here. He's been up there too long. I don't want Octavian…" She hesitated. "Just get Percy down here."**

**So Frank had run all the way to Temple Hill.**

**Walking back, Percy had asked tons of questions about Hazel's brother, Nico,**

Nico scowled.

**but Frank didn't know that much.**

"**He's okay," Frank said. "He's not like Hazel—"**

"**How do you mean?" Percy asked.**

"**Oh, um…" Frank coughed. He'd meant that Hazel was better looking and nicer,**

Aphrodite and Cabin Ten giggled and pushed each other around.

**but he decided not to say that. "Nico is kind of mysterious. He makes everybody else nervous, being the son of Pluto, and all."**

Nico gave everyone the Criminal's Smile.

Percy rubbed his arms unconsciously, feeling every individual goosebump.

"**But not you?"**

**Frank shrugged. "Pluto's cool. It's not his fault he runs the Underworld. He just got bad luck when the gods were dividing up the world, you know? Jupiter got the sky, Neptune got the sea, and Pluto got the shaft."**

"**Death doesn't scare you?"**

**Frank almost wanted to laugh. Not at all! Got a match?**

The demigods chuckled.

**Instead he said, "Back in the old times, like the Greek times, when Pluto was called Hades, he was more of a death god. When he became Roman, he got more…I don't know, respectable. He became the god of wealth, too. Everything under the earth belongs to him. So I don't think of him as being real scary."**

Hades gave everyone the Maximized Version of The Criminal's Smile.

It's astonishing how everyone rubbed their arms at the same time, feeling every individual goosebump. Even Zeus managed to rub his arms a little bit before he realized what he was doing and quickly slammed his arms down the armrests.

**Percy scratched his head. "How does a god become Roman? If he's Greek, wouldn't he stay Greek?"**

**Frank walked a few steps, thinking about that. Vitellius would've given Percy an hour-long lecture on the subject, probably with a PowerPoint presentation, but Frank took his best shot. "The way Romans saw it, they adopted the Greek stuff and perfected it."**

Every Greek (which was everybody) frowned.

**Percy made a sour face. "Perfected it? Like there was something wrong with it?"**

**Frank remembered what Vitellius had said: You've got ancient roots. Greek as well as Roman. His grandmother had said something similar.**

"**I don't know," he admitted. "Rome was more successful than Greece.**

The demigods scowled. The gods did too.

"YES!" Fortuna shrieked. "ROME RULES 4EVER!"

"Shut up," Athena growled.

**They made this huge empire. The gods became a bigger deal in Roman times—more powerful and widely known. That's why they're still around today. So many civilizations base themselves on Rome. The gods changed to Roman because that's where the center of power was. Jupiter was…well, more responsible as a Roman god than he had been when he was Zeus.**

Zeus scowled, but in a way, Frank was right...

**Mars became a lot more important and disciplined."**

Ares gave everyone the Biker Boy's Grin.

"**And Juno became a hippie bag lady," Percy noted. **

Hera sniffed disdainfully.

"Hippie bag lady," Apollo and Hermes sang together. "Hippie bag lady, Hippie bag lady..."

"Oh, just shut up," Hera snarled.

Good thing Apollo and Hermes had the sense to shut up before they were permanently turned into cows.

"**So you're saying the old Greek gods—they just changed permanently to Roman? There's nothing left of the Greek?"**

As one, the gods shuddered.

"**Uh…" Frank looked around to make sure there were no campers or Lares nearby, but the main gates were still a hundred yards away. "That's a sensitive topic. Some people say Greek influence is still around, like it's still a part of the gods' personalities. I've heard stories of demigods occasionally leaving Camp Jupiter. They reject Roman training and try to follow the older Greek style—like being solo heroes instead of working as a team the way the legion does. And back in the ancient days, when Rome fell, the eastern half of the empire survived—the Greek half."**

**Percy stared at him. "I didn't know that."**

"**It was called Byzantium." Frank liked saying that word. It sounded cool. "The eastern empire lasted another thousand years, but it was always more Greek than Roman. For those of us who follow the Roman way, it's kind of a sore subject. That's why, whatever country we settle in, Camp Jupiter is always in the west—the Roman part of the territory. The east is considered bad luck."**

"**Huh." Percy frowned.**

**Frank couldn't blame him for feeling confused. The Greek/Roman stuff gave him a headache, too.**

**They reached the gates.**

"**I'll take you to the baths to get you cleaned up,"**

Percy perked up. Bath is equivalent to water. Water is equivalent to Home. Besides, taking baths is one of Percy's more enjoyable hobbies than killing monsters.

**Frank said. "But first…about those vials I found at the river."**

"Oh," Percy deflated. "I was hoping he'd forget about those,"

"Seaweed Brain," Annabeth tutted.

Leo fiddled with a few more gears. Hephaestus was working on another machine, but he evidently needed fire to complete the project he was working on.

"**Gorgon's blood," Percy said. "One vial heals. One is deadly poison."**

**Frank's eyes widened. "You know about that? Listen, I wasn't going to keep them. I just—"**

Ares coughed and sneezed. Zeus did too. Then, Katie, the Stoll brothers, Artemis, Apollo, and everyone else (except for Leo and Hephaestus) started coughing when a plume of foul blacks smoke filled the room.

"HEPHAESTUS! STOP THAT!" Zeus roared.

"Sorry!"

The smoke disappeared. Hephaestus sat back on this throne, with a flameless forge behind him. With another snap of his fingers, the forge disappeared too. On his lap was a steaming bronze machine, gleaming in the light.

"Awesome," Leo whispered, rushing up to see.

"**I know why you did it, Frank."**

"**You do?"**

"**Yeah." Percy smiled. "If I'd come into camp carrying a vial of poison, that would've looked bad. You were trying to protect me."**

Annabeth and Athena scowled. Is this Frank boy speaking the truth?

"**Oh…right." Frank wiped the sweat off his palms. "But if we could figure out which vial was which, it might heal your memory."**

**Percy's smile faded. He gazed across the hills. "Maybe…I guess. But you should hang on to those vials for now. There's a battle coming. We may need them to save lives."**

**Frank stared at him, a little bit in awe. Percy had a chance to get his memory back, and he was willing to wait in case someone else needed the vial more? Romans were supposed to be unselfish and help their comrades, but Frank wasn't sure anyone else at camp would have made that choice.**

"Good Percy," Travis said.

"Yeah, Good old Percy, always doing the right thing..."

"Shut up Connor," Annabeth snapped. She gave Percy a quick kiss.

Nico (as always) scowled.

"**So you don't remember anything?" Frank asked. "Family, friends?"**

**Percy fingered the clay beads around his neck. "Only glimpses. Murky stuff. A girlfriend…I thought she'd be at camp." He looked at Frank carefully, as if making a decision. "Her name was Annabeth. You don't know her, do you?"**

For the hundredth time that day, Aphrodite cooed. For the hundredth time that day, Cabin Ten giggled and pushed each other around.

**Frank shook his head. "I know everybody at camp, but no Annabeth. What about your family? Is your mom mortal?"**

"**I guess so…she's probably worried out of her mind. Does your mom get to see you much?"**

**Frank stopped at the bathhouse entrance. He grabbed some towels from the supply shed. "She died."**

Ares tripped over his words, but managed to catch the slips in time.

Hades gritted his teeth. A dizzying image of Marie flashed before his eyes.

**Percy knit his brow. "How?"**

**Usually Frank would lie. He'd say an accident and shut off the conversation. Otherwise his emotions got out of control. He couldn't cry at Camp Jupiter. He couldn't show weakness. But with Percy, Frank found it easier to talk.**

"**She died in the war," he said. "Afghanistan."**

"**She was in the military?"**

"**Canadian. Yeah."**

"**Canada? I didn't know—"**

"**Most Americans don't." Frank sighed. "But yeah, Canada has troops there. My mom was a captain. She was one of the first women to die in combat. She saved some soldiers who were pinned down by enemy fire. She…she didn't make i-i-it.**

It was too late. Ares stuttered a bit at the end.

"Hey, Ares, you seriously..." Connor began.

Hermes frowned. Connor's mouth snapped shut by an invisible force. Connor glanced accusingly at Hermes. Hermes released the invisible clamp.

"Don't want to make Ares mad," Hermes whispered.

Realizing that what he was about to say might have insulted Ares, Connor nodded in thanks.

**The funeral was right before I came down here."**

**Percy nodded. He didn't ask for more details, which Frank appreciated. He didn't say he was sorry, or make any of the well-meaning comments Frank always hated: Oh, you poor guy. That must be so hard on you. You have my deepest condolences.**

The demigods muttered in agreement, glaring at the gods. The gods shifted uncomfortably.

_This book is making me... no, all of us regret every single bad thing we've done, _Zeus thought grumpily.

**It was like Percy had faced death before, like he knew about grief. What mattered was listening. You didn't need to say you were sorry. The only thing that helped was moving on—moving forward.**

"**How about you show me the baths now?" Percy suggested. "I'm filthy."**

**Frank managed a smile. "Yeah. You kind of are."**

**As they walked into the steam room, Frank thought of his grandmother, his mom, and his cursed childhood, thanks to Juno and her piece of firewood. He almost wished he could forget his past, the way Percy had.**

"Poor guy," Katie said sympathetically.

"So, who's gonna read next?" Ares asked gruffly.

There was a moment of silence.

"I will," Hera said.

"Sure," Ares handed the book over.

"So let's begin **Frank X..."**


	10. Chapter 10

**I am incredibly sorry for the late update. **

**Everything has been completely hectic, with the midterms, the stress, the extracurricular activities and updating my other story. **

**In any way, here is the chapter. Enjoy!**

**Chapter Ten**

"**Frank X..."**

**Frank didn't remember much about the funeral itself.**

A few demigods shook their heads in sympathy.

"Can I play with it?" Leo asked, goggling at the machine on his father's lap.

**But he remembered the hours leading up to it—his grand mother coming out into the backyard to find him shooting arrows at her porcelain collection.**

**His grandmother's house was a rambling gray stone mansion on twelve acres in North Vancouver. Her backyard ran straight into Lynn Canyon Park.**

**The morning was cold and drizzly, but Frank didn't feel the chill. He wore a black wool suit and a black overcoat that had once belonged to his grandfather. Frank had been startled and upset to find that they fit him fine. The clothes smelled like wet mothballs and jasmine. The fabric was itchy but warm. With his bow and quiver, he probably looked like a very dangerous butler.**

Percy shook his head, trying to dislodge the image.

Naturally, he failed.

**He'd loaded some of his grandmother's porcelain in a wagon and toted it into the yard, where he set up targets on old fence posts at the edge of the property. He'd been shooting so long, his fingers were starting to lose their feeling. With every arrow, he imagined he was striking down his problems.**

_If it could actually be that easy. _Annabeth thought, glaring at Hera.

Hera glanced snootily back. Well, apparently Annabeth had not forgotten the cow poop incident yet. But hey, cow poop (apart from the stench) isn't exactly dangerous and life-threatening... was it?

**Snipers in Afghanistan. Smash. A teapot exploded with an arrow through the middle.**

**The sacrifice medal, a silver disk on a red-and-black ribbon, given for death in the line of duty, presented to Frank as if it were something important, something that made everything all right. Thwack. A teacup spun into the woods.**

**The officer who came to tell him: "Your mother is a hero. Captain Emily Zhang died trying to save her comrades."**

Ares slipped his wraparound shades back on.

No tears allowed.

Wait...

Ares frowned. He never really needed to cry before. Why was he crying now?

**Crack. A blue-and-white plate split into pieces.**

**His grandmother's chastisement: Men do not cry. Especially Zhang men. You will endure, Fai.**

A tiny smile cracked across Ares's lips. That fiery old crone...

**No one called him Fai except his grandmother.**

**What sort of name is Frank? she would scold. That is not a Chinese name.**

Percy scowled. "What sort of name is Fai? That's not even a proper name anywhere!"

Annabeth poked Percy playfully.

Nico scowled.

**I'm not Chinese, Frank thought, but he didn't dare say that. His mother had told him years ago: There is no arguing with Grandmother. It'll only make you suffer worse. She'd been right. And now Frank had no one except his grandmother.**

"Aw..." Katie said sympathetically.

**Thud. A fourth arrow hit the fence post and stuck there, quivering.**

"**Fai," said his grandmother.**

"OOPS," Travis and Connor said together.

"Looks like Grandmother will NOT be too happy," Chris muttered.

**Frank turned.**

**She was clutching a shoebox-sized mahogany chest that Frank had never seen before. With her high-collared black dress and severe bun of gray hair, she looked like a school teacher from the 1800s.**

**She surveyed the carnage: her porcelain in the wagon, the shards of her favorite tea sets scattered over the lawn, Frank's arrows sticking out of the ground, the trees, the fence posts, and one in the head of a smiling garden gnome.**

Annabeth wore a thoughtful expression as she sketched everything down on a sheet of scrap paper borrowed from Malcolm. Yes, Annabeth sketched the porcelain in the wagon, the shards of china and yes, Annabeth did actually sketch the garden gnome with the arrow sticking out of its head.

**Frank thought she would yell, or hit him with the box.**

"Yowch," Travis muttered.

After admiring the machine, Leo left his father in peace as Hephaestus adjusted it. Leo pondered what to do.

**He'd never done anything this bad before. He'd never felt so angry.**

**Grandmother's face was full of bitterness and disapproval. She looked nothing like Frank's mom. He wondered how his mother had turned out to be so nice—always laughing, always gentle. Frank couldn't imagine his mom growing up with Grandmother any more than he could imagine her on the battlefield—though the two situations probably weren't that different.**

**He waited for Grandmother to explode. Maybe he'd be grounded and wouldn't have to go to the funeral. He wanted to hurt her for being so mean all the time, for letting his mother go off to war, for scolding him to get over it. All she cared about was her stupid collection.**

The demigods sighed in sympathy.

"**Stop this ridiculous behavior," Grandmother said. She didn't sound very irritated. "It is beneath you."**

**To Frank's astonishment, she kicked aside one of her favorite teacups.**

Katie arched her brows in astonishment.

Drew rolled her eyes as she picked up a pocket mirror and started reapplying her lip gloss, admiring the way it glistened under the lighting.

"**The car will be here soon," she said. "We must talk."**

**Frank was dumbfounded. He looked more closely at the mahogany box. For a horrible moment, he wondered if it contained his mother's ashes, but that was impossible. Grandmother had told him there would be a military burial. Then why did Grandmother hold the box so gingerly, as if its contents grieved her?**

_The box has the stick inside, _Ares realized. He wrung his fingers anxiously.

"**Come inside," she said. Without waiting to see if he would follow, she turned and marched toward the house.**

**In the parlor, Frank sat on a velvet sofa, surrounded by vintage family photos, porcelain vases that had been too large for his wagon, and red Chinese calligraphy banners. Frank didn't know what the calligraphy said. He'd never had much interest in learning. He didn't know most of the people in the photographs, either.**

**Whenever Grandmother started lecturing him about his ancestors—how they'd come over from China and prospered in the import/export business, eventually becoming one of the wealthiest Chinese families in Vancouver—well, it was boring. Frank was fourth-generation Canadian. He didn't care about China and all these musty antiques. The only Chinese characters he could recognize were his family name: Zhang. Master of bows. That was cool.**

Apollo grinned.

"Frank," Artemis groaned. "Frank, would you please stop talking about how awesome bows are. Fine, I admit that bows are awesome, but please stop hinting that you wish Apollo would be your father!"

"Hey!" Apollo protested.

**Grandmother sat next to him, her posture stiff, her hands folded over the box.**

"**Your mother wanted you to have this," she said with reluctance. "She kept it since you were a baby. When she went away to the war, she entrusted it to me. But now she is gone. And soon you will be going, too."**

**Frank's stomach fluttered. "Going? Where?"**

"**I am old," Grandmother said, as if that were a surprising announcement. "I have my own appointment with Death soon enough.**

A few demigods shot Hades and Nico stinky looks.

Hades growled.

Nico scowled.

"We're always having appointments with Death," Clarisse snarled. The demigods echoed her words.

Hades and Nico shrank into the shadows. Darkness thickened in the throne room.

Thankfully, Hera resumed reading before a Shadow War began.

**I cannot teach you the skills you will need, and I cannot keep this burden. If something were to happen to it, I would never forgive myself. You would die."**

The Shadow War paused briefly.

"What?" Malcolm asked.

**Frank wasn't sure he'd heard her right. It sounded like she had said his life depended on that box. He wondered why he'd never seen it before. She must have kept it locked in the attic—the one room Frank was forbidden to explore. She'd always said she kept her most valuable treasures up there.**

Athena narrowed her eyes. Most valuable treasures... or weapons?

**She handed the box to him. He opened the lid with trembling fingers. Inside, cushioned in velvet lining, was a terrifying,**

The Shadow War was completely forgotten as breaths hitched...

**Life-altering,**

Sharp inhales...

**incredibly important**

Tiny squeals of fear...

…**piece of wood.**

The held breaths whooshed out as one.

"A piece of wood?" Connor snorted. "That's not important!"

_Actually, it is more important than you think, _Ares thought darkly.

**It looked like driftwood—hard and smooth, sculpted into a wavy shape. It was about the size of a TV remote control. The tip was charred. Frank touched the burned end. It still felt warm. The ashes left a black smudge on his finger.**

"**It's a stick," he said. He couldn't figure out why Grandmother was acting so tense and serious about it.**

**Her eyes glittered. "Fai, do you know of prophecies? Do you know of the gods?"**

**The questions made him uncomfortable. He thought about Grandmother's silly gold statues of Chinese immortals, her superstitions about putting furniture in certain places and avoiding unlucky numbers. Prophecies made him think of fortune cookies,**

Percy chuckled along with a few other demigods.

**which weren't even Chinese—not really—but the bullies at school teased him about stupid stuff like that: Confucius say …all that garbage. Frank had never even been to China. He wanted nothing to do with it. But of course, Grandmother didn't want to hear that.**

"**A little, Grandmother," he said. "Not much."**

"**Most would have scoffed at your mother's tale," she said, "But I did not. I know of prophecies and gods. Greek, Roman, Chinese—they intertwine in our family. I did not question what she told me about your father."**

"**Wait ... what?"**

"**Your father was a god," she said plainly.**

"YES!" Apollo yelled. "AND THAT GOD IS ME!"

Ares gritted his teeth. His dislike of the Sun god increased.

"Just... wait... and... see..." Ares eked out.

**If Grandmother had had a sense of humor, Frank would have thought she was kidding. But Grandmother never teased. Was she going senile?**

"If I didn't know better, I would have thought Grandmother was senile too," Annabeth sighed.

"**Stop gaping at me!"**

Everyone jumped. Hera's imitation was astounding. It was just like a massive slap in the face.

**she snapped. "My mind is not addled. Haven't you ever wondered why your father never came back?"**

"**He was…" Frank faltered. Losing his mother was painful enough. He didn't want to think about his father, too. "He was in the army, like Mom. He went missing in action. In Iraq."**

"**Bah. He was a god. He fell in love with your mother because she was a natural warrior. She was like me—strong, brave, good, beautiful."**

"Yeah, right," Travis said.

"She's _totally _strong, brave, good and beautiful," Connor agreed.

"Shut up, you two!" Katie and Demeter snapped.

**Strong and brave, Frank could believe. Picturing Grandmother as good or beautiful was more difficult.**

The demigods chuckled. Drew rolled her eyes. Nico scowled.

**He still suspected she might be losing her marbles, but he asked, "What kind of god?"**

Apollo grinned, knowing the answer.

"**Roman," she said. "Beyond that, I don't know.**

"Aw..." Apollo deflated visibly.

_Too bad, too sad, _Ares sneered inside his head.

**Your mother wouldn't say, or perhaps she didn't know herself. It is no surprise a god would fall in love with her, given our family. He must have known she was of ancient blood."**

"**Wait…we're Chinese. Why would Roman gods want to date Chinese Canadians?"**

**Grandmother's nostrils flared. "If you bothered to learn the family history, Fai, you might know this. China and Rome are not so different, nor as separate as you might believe. Our family is from Gansu Province, a town once called Li-Jien. And before that…as I said, ancient blood. The blood of princes and heroes."**

**Frank just stared at her.**

**She sighed in exasperation. "My words are wasted on this young ox! You will learn the truth when you go to camp. Perhaps your father will claim you. But for now, I must explain the firewood."**

Hestia pursed her lips and fanned the flames. Firewood, firewood, it just had to be firewood...

**She pointed at the big stone fireplace. "Shortly after you were born, a visitor appeared at our hearth. Your mother and I sat here on the couch, just where you and I are sitting. You were a tiny thing, swaddled in a blue blanket, and she cradled you in her arms."**

**It sounded like a sweet memory, but Grandmother told it in a bitter tone, as if she knew, even then, that Frank would turn into a big lumbering oaf.**

Katie frowned. "That's not nice,"

"Try telling that to Grandmother," Leo suggested.

Katie shuddered. This Grandmother seemed absolutely horrid. She almost pitied Frank.

"**A woman appeared at the fire," she continued. "She was a white woman—a gwai poh—dressed in blue silk, with a strange cloak like the skin of a goat."**

Hera read proudly at her description.

"**A goat," Frank said numbly.**

"Goats and cows... what's the difference?" Annabeth asked haughtily.

Hera scowled at Annabeth, who held the gaze. Finally, as everyone was getting impatient, Hera glanced back at the book and resumed.

**Grandmother scowled. "Yes, clean your ears, Fai Zhang! I'm too old to tell every story twice! The woman with the goatskin was a goddess. I can always tell these things. She smiled at the baby—at you—and she told your mother, in perfect Mandarin, no less: 'He will close the circle. He will return your family to its roots and bring you great honor.'"**

"That's nice," Lacy noted.

"Actually, that _isn't _nice," Leo replied.

**Grandmother snorted. "I do not argue with goddesses, but perhaps this one did not see the future clearly. Whatever the case, she said, 'He will go to camp and restore your reputation there. He will free Thanatos from his icy chains—'"**

The demigods stiffened. Thanatos...

"**Wait, who?"**

"**Thanatos," Grandmother said impatiently. "The Greek name for Death.**

"Why?" Hades sighed when everyone gave him stinky looks.

Nico scowled.

Leo made another stack of cards, but naturally, they toppled. Grover picked the discarded cards up and ate them like potato chips.

**Now may I continue without interruptions? The goddess said, 'The blood of Pylos is strong in this child from his mother's side. He will have the Zhang family gift, but he will also have the powers of his father.'"**

Percy groaned in envy. Leo was clearly reminded of Percy's indignation when Percy realized he did not apparently have the shape-shifting gene.

**Suddenly Frank's family history didn't seem so boring. He desperately wanted to ask what it all meant—powers, gifts, blood of Pylos. What was this camp, and who was his father? But he didn't want to interrupt Grandmother again.**

"Clever child," Athena agreed. "Don't interrupt your Grandmother. Something tells me that she would not take another interruption kindly,"

**He wanted her to keep talking.**

"**No power comes without a price, Fai," she said. "Before the goddess disappeared, she pointed at the fire and said, 'He will be the strongest of your clan, and the greatest. But the Fates have decreed he will also be the most vulnerable. His life will burn bright and short. As soon as that piece of tinder is consumed...**

Hera hesitated as she read on. Should she 'read' the book using her own words or continue?

"Hera?" Zeus asked, getting impatient.

**that stick at the edge of the fire...**

Hera dragged out every syllable.

**your son is destined to die.'"**

"HERA!" the assembly protested.

"What?" Hera asked. "Tell that to the Fates! Not me!"

The Fates huddled in an insignificant corner bowed their heads.

**Frank could hardly breathe. He looked at the box in his lap, and the smudge of ash on his finger. The story sounded ridiculous, but suddenly the piece of driftwood seemed more sinister, colder and heavier. "This…this—"**

"**Yes, my thick-headed ox,"**

Leo wondered if he should start calling Frank a thick-headed ox from now on.

**Grandmother said. "That is the very stick. The goddess disappeared, and I snatched the wood from the fire immediately. We have kept it ever since."**

"**If it burns up, I die?"**

The assembly murmured in sympathy.

"You wouldn't feel so sympathetic once you realize what he could do," Leo noted. He barely even realized he had spoken aloud.

The assembly stared at him strangely.

"You... know his power?" Percy asked.

Leo clapped his hands over his mouth.

"What is it?" Percy asked eagerly. Travis, Connor, Clarisse, Chris, and just about everyone (except for Ares, who already knew) leaned forward.

"You'll see," Leo answered.

"C'mon, man!" Travis urged. "I wanna..."

Hera cut him off brutally as she continued reading.

"**It is not so strange," Grandmother said. "Roman, Chinese—the destinies of men can often be predicted, and sometimes guarded against, at least for a time. The firewood is in your possession now. Keep it close. As long as it is safe, you are safe."**

**Frank shook his head. He wanted to protest that this was just a stupid legend. Maybe Grandmother was trying to scare him as some sort of revenge for breaking her porcelain.**

**But her eyes were defiant. She seemed to be challenging Frank: If you do not believe it, burn it.**

The demigods flinched. This Grandmother was certainly one strict old crone.

**Frank closed the box. "If it's so dangerous, why not seal the wood in something that won't burn, like plastic or steel? Why not put it in a safe deposit box?"**

Athena sighed as she pondered through the options of what would happen if they actually did seal it in a safety deposit box or in plastic or steel.

"**What would happen," Grandmother wondered, "if we coated the stick in another substance. Would you, too, suffocate? I do not know. Your mother would not take the risk. She couldn't bear to part with it, for fear something would go wrong. Banks can be robbed. Buildings can burn down. Strange things conspire when one tries to cheat fate. Your mother thought the stick was only safe in her possession, until she went to war. Then she gave it to me."**

**Grandmother exhaled sourly. "Emily was foolish, going to war, though I suppose I always knew it was her destiny. She hoped to meet your father again."**

"**She thought…she thought he'd be in Afghanistan?"**

Apollo frowned vaguely. Oh no. Frank, apparently was not his son. He rarely visited Afghanistan at all.

Of course, he didn't actually say it out loud.

**Grandmother spread her hands, as if this was beyond her understanding. "She went. She died bravely. She thought the family gift would protect her. No doubt that's how she saved those soldiers. But the gift has never kept our family safe. It did not help my father, or his father. It did not help me. And now you have become a man. You must follow the path."**

"**But…what path? What's our gift—archery?"**

Apollo and Artemis flashed identical grins before squabbling.

Honestly, it was quite interesting to watch two gods squabble. It's astonishing how much they look like children.

"**You and your archery! Foolish boy. Soon you will find out. Tonight, after the funeral, you must go south. Your mother said if she did not come back from combat, Lupa would send messengers. They will escort you to a place where the children of the gods can be trained for their destiny."**

**Frank felt as if he were being shot with arrows, his heart splitting into porcelain shards.**

"Aw..." Demeter and Aphrodite sighed in perfect harmony.

"JINX!" they yelled together before bursting into giggles. Katie and Drew watched their mothers with identical looks of disgust and "What in the world...?" expressions.

**He didn't understand most of what Grandmother said, but one thing was clear: she was kicking him out.**

Annabeth flinched. Some other demigods did too.

The gods glanced anxiously amongst each other. Did their children suffer these situations as well... and they weren't there for them?

"**You'd just let me go?" he asked. "Your last family?"**

The assembly held their breath, waiting for the verdict.

**Grandmother's mouth quivered. Her eyes looked moist. Frank was shocked to realize she was near tears.**

Leo raised his eyebrows. Grandmother in tears... oh my.

**She'd lost her husband years ago, then her daughter, and now she was about to send away her only grandson. But she rose from the couch and stood tall, her posture as stiff and correct as ever.**

"**When you arrive at camp," she instructed, "you must speak to the praetor in private. Tell her your great-grandfather was Shen Lun. It has been many years since the San Francisco incident. Hopefully they will not kill you for what he did, but you might want to beg forgiveness for his actions."**

"This is sounding better and better," Percy muttered.

"**This is sounding better and better," Frank mumbled.**

"Wow!" Annabeth inspected Percy. "You two could be related!"

_Actually, they are, _Leo thought, smiling a bit as he stacked another deck of cards before they toppled right into Grover's lap. Unfortunately, the cards only lived for about two seconds before being eaten by a very hungry goat.

"**The goddess said you would bring our family full circle." Grandmother's voice had no trace of sympathy. "She chose your path years ago, and it will not be easy. But now it is time for the funeral. We have obligations. Come. The car will be waiting."**

**The ceremony was a blur: solemn faces, the patter of rain on the graveside awning, the crack of rifles from the honor guard, the casket sinking into the earth.**

**That night, the wolves came. They howled on the front porch. Frank came out to meet them. He took his travel pack, his warmest clothes, his bow and his quiver. His mother's sacrifice medal was tucked in his pack. The charred stick was wrapped carefully in three layers of cloth in his coat pocket, next to his heart.**

**His journey south began—to the Wolf House in Sonoma, and eventually to Camp Jupiter, where he spoke to Reyna privately as Grandmother had instructed. He begged forgiveness for the great-grandfather he knew nothing about. Reyna let him join the legion. She never did tell him what his great-grandfather had done, but she obviously knew. Frank could tell it was bad.**

"**I judge people by their own merits," Reyna had told him. "But do not mention the name Shen Lun to anyone else. It must remain our secret, or you'll be treated badly."**

"He would," Ares murmured quietly.

**Unfortunately, Frank didn't have many merits. His first month at camp was spent knocking over rows of weapons, breaking chariots, and tripping entire cohorts as they marched.**

The demigods winced in sympathy.

**His favorite job was caring for Hannibal the elephant, but he'd managed to mess that up, too—giving Hannibal indigestion**

"What?" Percy asked, dazed.

"What is it?" Annabeth asked.

"I thought elephants could eat everything!" Percy said.

"Well, they can't eat certain things. They can, however, eat peanuts..." As Annabeth started listing the incredibly long list of what elephants could eat, Hera continued reading.

**by feeding him peanuts.**

Annabeth's jaw dropped to the floor.

**Who knew elephants could be peanut-intolerant? **

"Sorry, Wise Girl," Percy said quickly.

Annabeth's jaw was still on the ground as she realized that elephants were, indeed, peanut-intolerant.

**Frank figured Reyna was regretting her decision to let him join.**

**Every day, he woke up wondering if the stick would somehow catch fire and burn, and he would cease to exist.**

**All of this ran through Frank's head as he walked with Hazel and Percy to the war games. He thought about the stick wrapped inside his coat pocket, and what it meant that Juno had appeared at camp. Was he about to die? He hoped not. He hadn't brought his family any honor yet—that was for sure. Maybe Apollo would claim him today and explain his powers and gifts.**

The demigods glared at Apollo, as if saying, "Well? What are you waiting for? Claim him right now!"

**Once they got out of camp, the Fifth Cohort formed two lines behind their centurions, Dakota and Gwen. They marched north, skirting the edge of the city, and headed to the Field of Mars—the largest, flattest part of the valley. The grass was cropped short by all the unicorns, bulls, and homeless fauns that grazed here. The earth was pitted with explosion craters and scarred with trenches from past games. At the north end of the field stood their target. The engineers had built a stone fortress with an iron portcullis, guard towers, scorpion ballistae, water cannons, and no doubt many other nasty surprises for the defenders to use.**

Clarisse, Ares, and rest of the cabin drooled in approval.

"**They did a good job today," Hazel noted. "That's bad for us."**

"**Wait," Percy said. "You're telling me that fortress was built today?"**

**Hazel grinned. "Legionnaires are trained to build. If we had to, we could break down the entire camp and rebuild it somewhere else. Take maybe three or four days, but we could do it."**

"Impressive," Hephaestus muttered.

"**Let's not," Percy said. "So you attack a different fort every night?"**

"**Not every night," Frank said. "We have different training exercises. Sometimes death ball—um, which is like paint-ball, except with…you know, poison and acid and fire balls. Sometimes we do chariots and gladiator competitions, sometimes war games."**

**Hazel pointed at the fort. "Somewhere inside, the First and Second Cohorts are keeping their banners. Our job is to get inside and capture them without getting slaughtered. We do that, we win."**

**Percy's eyes lit up. "Like Capture-the-flag. I think I like Capture-the-flag."**

"Of course, Percy. You love Capture-the-flag," Connor said.

"Who doesn't?" Percy countered.

**Frank laughed. "Yeah, well…it's harder than it sounds. We have to get past those scorpions and water cannons on the walls, fight through the inside of the fortress, find the banners, and defeat the guards, all while protecting our own banners and troops from capture. And our cohort is in competition with the other two attacking cohorts. We sort of work together, but not really. The cohort that captures the banners gets all the glory."**

Ares rubbed his hands gleefully. The action...

**Percy stumbled, trying to keep time with the left-right marching rhythm. Frank sympathized. He'd spent his first two weeks falling down.**

"**So why are we practicing this, anyway?" Percy asked. "Do you guys spend a lot of time laying siege to fortified cities?"**

"**Teamwork," Hazel said. "Quick thinking. Tactics. Battle skills. You'd be surprised what you can learn in the war games."**

"**Like who will stab you in the back," Frank said.**

A few demigods remembered Luke. Stabbing them in the back...

"**Especially that," Hazel agreed.**

_Please change a topic... _Annabeth thought desperately.

**They marched to the center of the Field of Mars and formed ranks. The Third and Fourth Cohorts assembled as far as possible from the Fifth. The centurions for the attacking side gathered for a conference. In the sky above them, Reyna circled on her pegasus, Scipio, ready to play referee.**

**Half a dozen giant eagles flew in formation behind her—prepared for ambulance airlift duty if necessary. The only person not participating in the game was Nico di Angelo, "Pluto's ambassador," who had climbed an observation tower about a hundred yards from the fort and would be watching with binoculars.**

Hm...

It was just so slightly difficult to picture Nico di Angelo with binoculars... It was actually just so slightly hilarious to picture Nico di Angelo with binoculars...

**Frank propped his pilum against his shield and checked Percy's armor. Every strap was correct. Every piece of armor was properly adjusted.**

"**You did it right," he said in amazement. "Percy, you must've done war games before."**

"**I don't know. Maybe."**

**The only thing that wasn't regulation was Percy's glowing bronze sword—not Imperial gold, and not a gladius. The blade was leaf-shaped, and the writing on the hilt was Greek.**

**Looking at it made Frank uneasy. Percy frowned. "We can use real weapons, right?"**

Clarisse's jaw dropped in indignation. "No real weapons? What's the fun in that?" Clarisse waved Lamer... Oh, I'm so sorry, Clarisse, please don't kill me... Maimer the Third to emphasize the point. The Ares cabin roared in agreement.

"Well, I would rather play games without real weapons," Katie noted to no one in particular.

Watching the Ares Cabin roar and stomp their feet, Leo almost agreed with Katie's statement.

"**Yeah," Frank agreed. "For sure. I've just never seen a sword like that."**

"**What if I hurt somebody?"**

"**We heal them," Frank said. "Or try to. The legion medics are pretty good with ambrosia and nectar, and unicorn draught."**

"**No one dies," Hazel said. "Well, not usually. And if they do—"**

**Frank imitated the voice of Vitellius: "They're wimps! Back in my day, we died all the time, and we liked it!"**

Hades hoped that Vitellius wouldn't mind if he found himself unable to speak for the rest of the day.

**Hazel laughed. "Just stay with us, Percy. Chances are we'll get the worst duty and get eliminated early. They'll throw us at the walls first to soften up the defenses. Then the Third and Fourth Cohorts will march in and get the honors, if they can even breach the fort."**

**Horns blew. Dakota and Gwen walked back from the officers' conference, looking grim.**

"**All right, here's the plan!" Dakota took a quick swig of Kool-Aid from his travel flask. "They're throwing us at the walls first to soften up the defenses."**

**The whole cohort groaned.**

"**I know, I know," Gwen said. "But maybe this time we'll have some luck!"**

Demeter smiled. She liked Gwen, always so optimistic... just like her!

**Leave it to Gwen to be the optimist. Everybody liked her because she took care of her people and tried to keep their spirits up. She could even control Dakota during his hyperactive bug-juice fits. Still, the campers grumbled and complained. Nobody believed in luck for the Fifth. **

"**First line with Dakota," Gwen said. "Lock shields and advance in turtle formation to the main gates. Try to stay in one piece. Draw their fire. Second line—" Gwen turned to Frank's row without much enthusiasm. "You seventeen, from Bobby over, take charge of the elephant and the scaling ladders. Try a flanking attack on the western wall. Maybe we can spread the defenders too thin. Frank, Hazel, Percy…well, just do whatever. Show Percy the ropes. Try to keep him alive." She turned back to the whole cohort. "If anybody gets over the wall first, I'll make sure you get the Mural Crown. Victory for the Fifth!"**

**The cohort cheered half heartedly and broke ranks.**

**Percy frowned. "'Do whatever?'"**

"**Yeah," Hazel sighed. "Big vote of confidence."**

The demigods sighed along.

"**What's the Mural Crown?" he asked.**

"**Military medal," Frank said. He'd been forced to memorize all the possible awards. "Big honor for the first soldier to breach an enemy fort. You'll notice nobody in the Fifth is wearing one. Usually we don't even get into the fort because we're burning or drowning or…"**

**He faltered, and looked at Percy. "Water cannons."**

"I like this boy," Athena sang.

"**What?" Percy asked.**

"**The cannons on the walls," Frank said, "they draw water from the aqueduct. There's a pump system—heck, I don't know how they work, but they're under a lot of pressure. If you could control them, like you controlled the river—"**

"**Frank!" Hazel beamed. "That's brilliant!"**

"Finally some Frazel!" Aphrodite cried.

"Frazel?" Lacy, Drew, Mitchell and Cabin Ten glanced blankly at their mother.

"Yes, Frazel!" Aphrodite sang. "It's a cute little nickname I made for them. Aren't they just so cute together?"

"Excuse me while I gag," Leo muttered to himself.

**Percy didn't look so sure. "I don't know how I did that at the river. I'm not sure I can control the cannons from this far away."**

"**We'll get you closer." Frank pointed to the eastern wall of the fort, where the Fifth Cohort wouldn't be attacking. "That's where the defense will be weakest. They'll never take three kids seriously. I think we can sneak up pretty close before they see us."**

"**Sneak up how?" Percy asked.**

**Frank turned to Hazel. "Can you do that thing again?"**

**She punched him in the chest. "You said you wouldn't tell anybody!"**

**Immediately Frank felt terrible. He'd gotten so caught up in the idea...**

**Hazel muttered under her breath. "Never mind. It's fine. Percy, he's talking about the trenches. The Field of Mars is riddled with tunnels from over the years. Some are collapsed, or buried deep, but a lot of them are still passable. I'm pretty good at finding them and using them. I can even collapse them if I have to."**

"**Like you did with the gorgons," Percy said, "to slow them down."**

**Frank nodded approvingly. "I told you Pluto was cool.**

Hades gaped. No one had ever called him cool before.

Suddenly, he was warming up to Frank too. What a horrifying thought.

**He's the god of everything under the earth. Hazel can find caves, tunnels, trapdoors—"**

"**And it was our secret," she grumbled.**

**Frank felt himself blushing. "Yeah, sorry. But if we can get close—"**

"**And if I can knock out the water cannons…" Percy nodded, like he was warming to the idea. "What do we do then?"**

**Frank checked his quiver. He always stocked up on special arrows. He'd never gotten to use them before, but maybe tonight was the night. Maybe he could finally do something good enough to get Apollo's attention.**

_He must be one of my children, _Athena thought as she nodded thoughtfully. _He is good with battle plans and..._

Annabeth wondered why her mother had a dreamy smile on her face.

"**The rest is up to me," he said. "Let's go."**

"Finally some action!" Ares sighed, stretching leisurely. His cabin roared in approval.

Katie was usually a peacemaker, but for once, she agreed. Some action would be nice.

"Who wants to read next?" Hera asked.

"I'll read it!" Clarisse said. Hera passed it over.

The most violent chapter for the most violent half-blood... makes sense. Sure, why not?

"**XI Frank..."**


End file.
